POETRY    AND    PROSE 


POETRY  AND    PROSE 

BEING 

Essays  on  Modern  English  Poetry 

BY 

ADOLPHUS   ALFRED    JACK 


NEW    YORK 

E.    P.    DUTTON    AND    CO. 
1912 


TO 

L.  J. 

1  Non  enim  possumus  omnia  per  nos  agere. 


257371 


PREFACE 

THIS  little  book  is  an  attempt  to  make  a  little  clearer 
what  every  one  feels  about  poetry.  It  is  an  attempt 
pursued  in  a  number  of  essays  upon  themes  so  familiar 
that  in  writing  upon  them  I  have  the  advantage  of 
touching  directly  upon  the  actual  poetical  experience 
of  almost  every  reader.  There  is  the  further  personal 
advantage  that  in  dealing  with  a  body  of  poetry  so 
often  analysed,  the  liability  to  individual  caprice  is, 
at  least  in  part,  eliminated. 

But  there  is  one  drawback.  The  familiarity  of  the 
subjects  increases  the  difficulty,  always  present  to  the 
modern  critical  writer,  of  adequate  acknowledgment. 
Where  I  am  conscious  of  specific  obligations  to  critical 
literature  I  have  of  course  acknowledged  them,  but 
there  remains  a  general  indebtedness  to  all  I  have 
read.  I  should  add  in  particular  that  I  should  pro- 
bably not  have  ventured  to  write  on  Meredith's  poetry 
at  all  but  for  the  aid  of  Mr.  Trevelyan's  wonderfully 
clear  Introduction  ;  that  I  have  also  found  George 
Meredith,  by  M.  Sturge  Henderson,  with  the  poetical 

I  vii 


viii  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

chapters  by  Mr.  Basil  de  Selincourt,  very  helpful ;  and 
that  though  I  had  thought  for  many  years  about 
Wordsworth's  poetry,  Professor  Raleigh's  Study 
caused  me  to  reconsider  my  method  of  approach. 
The  writings  that  of  recent  years  have  done  most 
to  control  my  critical  attitude  are  those  which  Mr. 
Bradley  has  collected  in  his  Oxford  Lectures  on 
Poetry. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


POETRY :  A  NOTE, i 

GRAY  (SOCIAL  OR  PROSE  POETRY),            ...  23 

BURNS  (NATURAL  OR  SPONTANEOUS  POETRY),    .          .  52 

WORDSWORTH  (BASIC  OR  ELEMENTAL  POETRY),         .  86 

BYRON    (ORATORICAL   POETRY),          .  .  .  .122 

THE  POETRY  OF  THE  INTELLECT- 
EMERSON— THE  POET  AS  TEACHER,  .  .  146 
ARNOLD— CRITICAL  POETRY,    .                .  .  .177 
MEREDITH— INTELLECTUAL  POETRY,  .  .             2OI 

EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE,  244 


POETRY:    A    NOTE 

To  distinguish  Poetry  from  Prose  it  is  not  sufficient 
to  say  that  the  one  is  rhythmical  expression,  the  other 
expression  without  rhythm.  One  knows  quite  well 
that  it  is  not.  Turn  a  leader  from  a  daily  newspaper 
into  octosyllabics  and  it  is  still  prose  ;  we  can  recognise 
passages  in  Homer  as  poetry  even  when  we  have  to 
read  them  in  the  beautiful  prose  of  Mr.  Lang. 

Prose  and  Poetry  are  the  forms  man's  expression 
takes  according  to  his  state  of  mind  at  the  moment  of 
utterance,  Prose  is  the  normal  language  of  man ; 
Poetry  is  his  normal  language,  too?  when  he  is  in  an ; 
\  abnormal  state.)  Prose  and  Poetry,  equally  normally 
and  naturally,  give  expression  to  two  different  sides 
of  man's  being. 

A  beast  cannot  speak  in  prose  ;  that  is  left  to  mortal 
man.  It  is,  however,  the  immortal  in  him  that  speaks 
in  poetry.  In  poetry  he  voices  the  soul  and  is  a  part 
of  the  spirit  that  breathes  in  everything. 

Prose  is  the  language  of  cool  reason,  Poetry  that  of 
^ecstasy.  It  follows  that  Prose  is  the  language  of 
speech,  normal,  without  rhythm,  balanced,  like  a  high- 
way road,  a  straight  line,  a  stick,  the  sentences  coming 
to  an  end  and  joining  into  one  another  imperceptibly  $ 
and  that  Poetry  is  the  language  of  song,  at  least  of 
rhythm — for  utterance,  when  excited,  takes  to  itself  a 


2  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

rhythmic  quality.1  Poetry  is  what  man  utters  when 
he  loses  his  balance,  his  normality — the  high  and  low 
notes  of  emotion. 

Prose  is  an  expression  of  the  intellect ;  Poetry  the 
language  of  feeling.  Prose  addresses  itself  to  an 
audience ;  Poetry  utters  what  she  feels  '  without 
thought  of  a  listener.'  If  Prose  is  humanity  talking, 
Poetry  is  humanity  *  overheard. ' 2 

The  best  prose  conveys  to  us  what  is  already  in  the 


1  As,  for  example,  '  Generation  after  generation    takes   to  itself 
the  Form  of  a  Body;  and  forth-issuing  from  Cimmerian  Night,  on 
Heaven's  Mission  APPEARS.     What  Force  and  Fire  is  in  each  he 
expends  :   one   grinding  in   the  mill  of   Industry  ;  one  hunter-like 
climbing  the  giddy  Alpine  heights  of  Science  ;  one  madly  dashed  in 
pieces  on  the  rocks  of  Strife,  in  war  with  his  fellow  : — and  then  the 
Heaven-sent  is  recalled  ;  his  earthly  Vesture  falls  away,  and  soon 
even  to  Sense  becomes  a  vanished  Shadow.     Thus,  like  some  wild- 
flaming,   wild-thundering   train    of  Heaven's    Artillery,    does    this 
mysterious   MANKIND   thunder    and   flame,   in    long-drawn,   quick- 
succeeding  grandeur,  through  the  unknown  Deep.      Thus,  like   a 
God-created,  fire-breathing  Spirit-host,  we  emerge  from  the  Inane  ; 
haste  stormfully  across  the  astonished  Earth  ;  then  plunge  again 
into  the  Inane.     Earth's  mountains  are  levelled,  and  her  seas  filled 
up,  in  our  passage  :  can  the  Earth,  which  is  but  dead  and  a  vision, 
resist  Spirits  which  have  reality  and  are  alive?' — Sartor  Resartus 
(1838),  p.  276. 

2  See  Mill's   Thoughts  o?i  Poetry  and  its  Varieties  (Dissertations 
and  Discussions,  vol.  i.).     The  statement  that  poetry,  is  '07/^rheard' 
is   Mill's,  and  what  is  here  said  of  Prose  he  had  formerly  said  of 
Eloquence.     But  as  he  is  distinguishing  not  between  Poetry  and 
Prose  but  between  Poetry  and  Eloquence,  to  avoid  confusion  I  do 
not  quote  him  here.     His  actual  words  will  be  found  on  page  137. 

The  process  of  Mill's  essay  is  as  follows  :  Denying  as  of  course 
that  the  essence  of  poetry  is  to  be  found  in  metre,  he  goes  on  to 
distinguish  shortly  between  poetry  and  matter  of  fact  or  science 
(terms  he  prefers  to  prose),  '  the  object  of  poetry '  being  '  confessedly 
to  act  upon  the  emotions.'  But  this  also  is  the  object  of  the  novelist 
and  orator.  He  therefore  goes  on  to  distinguish  between  the  poet 
and  the  novelist,  and  enters  at  length  upon  the  distinction  between 
eloquence  and  poetry — a  distinction  most  beautifully  carried  out  by 


POETRY : A  NOTE  3 

brain  of  the  writer.  The  best  poetry  reveals  something 
to  the  poet  himself.1  Looking  at  his  verses  he  does 
not  know  how  that  expression  came  there,  or  why 
Othello  in  his  trouble,  when  the  fancied  conduct  of 
Desdemona  had  ruined  his  world  for  him,  said  that 
it  had  been  better  had  the  Heavens 

'  Given  to  captivity  me  and  my  utmost  hopes.' 
Every  man  is  a  poet  in  his  youth,  a  politician  or  an 
essayist  in  middle  age.  Prose  lives  in  an  atmosphere 
of  completion  ;  Poetry  dallies  with  the  beginnings  and 
ends  of  things.  She  is  all  for  the  morning  and  the 
twilight,  hope  and  sorrow,  desire  and  defeat,  what  is 
to  be  and  what  has  been. 

/Prose  is  Is,  the  ever-present  fact,  to-day  ;' Poetry, 
in  love  with  yesterday  and  to-morrow,  flies  to  the 
cool  night  and  away  from  noon — to  the  cool  night 
with  its  silences  and  the  riddle  of  the  unnumbered 
stars.  ''Prose  deals  with  things  as  they  are — school, 
marriage,  wills,  dress,  law,  civilisation,  order  and 
degree.  Poetry  is  occupied  with  the  bases  of  these — 
birth,  love  and  death,  human  passions,  men. 

reference  to  music  and  painting.  This  constitutes  the  first  part, 
thirteen  pages,  from  which  no  one  would  wish  to  dissent.  The 
second  part  of  the  essay  is  chiefly  occupied  with  the  discussion  of 
the  essence  of  poetic  natures,  and  of  the  difference  'between  the 
poetry  of  a  poet,  and  the  poetry  of  a  cultivated  but  not  naturally 
poetic  mind.'  The  distinction  is  clearly  drawn,  but  for  the  purposes 
of  a  detailed  discussion  too  generally  and  definitely,  nor  do  I  think 
his  instances  happy.  For  his  distinction  between  description  and 
descriptive  poetry  see  page  20.  This  also  occurs  in  the  first  part, 
a  series  of  now  generally  accepted  truths  of  which  Mill  has  the 
credit,  as  far  as  I  know,  of  being  the  first  systematic  enunciator. 

1  Cp.  Mr.  A.  C.  Bradley,  Oxford  Lectures  on  Poetry.  '  The  specific 
way  of  imagination  is  not  to  clothe  in  imagery  consciously  held 
ideas  ;  it  is  to  produce  half-consciously  a  matter  from  which,  when 
produced,  the  reader  may,  if  he  chooses,  extract  ideas.' 


4  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Is  this  enough  to  say  about  Poetry  ?  The  danger  is 
that  it  is  too  much  to  say  of  Poetry  as  a  whole,  and 
that  not  all  of  it  will  apply  to  all  the  different  kinds 
of  Poetry  ;  but  I  have  set  it  down  as  it  is,  because  I 
believe  that  most  of  it  does  apply.  However,  it  is 
not  possible  to  speak  much  more  definitely  of  Poetry 
unless  one  has  in  view  some  definite  variety.  All  the 
chief  sayings  about  Poetry  have  been  couched  in  very 
general  terms.  There  is,  for  example,  Bacon's  pro- 
found saying  :  Poetry  '  was  ever  thought  to  have  some 
participation  of  divineness,  because  it  doth  raise  and 
erect  the  mind,  by  submitting  the  shews  of  things  to 
the  desires  of  the  mind  ;  whereas  reason  doth  buckle 
and  bow  the  mind  unto  the  nature  of  things.'1  This 
is  perhaps  made  a  little  clearer  in  Hazlitt's  para- 


1  'The  use  of  this  Feigned  History  hath  been  to  give  some 
shadow  of  satisfaction  to  the  mind  of  man  in  those  points  wherein 
the  nature  of  things  doth  deny  it ;  the  world  being  in  proportion 
inferior  to  the  soul ;  by  reason  whereof  there  is  agreeable  to  the 
spirit  of  man  a  more  ample  greatness,  a  more  exact  goodness,  and 
a  more  absolute  variety,  than  can  be  found  in  the  nature  of  things. 
Therefore,  because  the  acts  or  events  of  true  history  have  not  that 
magnitude  which  satisfieth  the  mind  of  man,  poesy  feigneth  acts  and 
events  greater  and  more  heroical ;  because  true  history  propoundeth 
the  successes  and  issues  of  actions  not  so  agreeable  to  the  merits 
of  virtue  and  vice,  therefore  poesy  feigns  them  more  just  in  retribu- 
tion, and  more  according  to  revealed  providence  ;  because  true 
history  representeth  actions  and  events  more  ordinary  and  less 
interchanged,  therefore  poesy  endueth  them  with  more  rareness, 
and  more  unexpected  and  alternative  variations.  So  as  it  appeareth 
that  poesy  serveth  and  conferreth  to  magnanimity,  morality,  and  to 
delectation.  And  therefore  it  was  ever  thought  to  have  some 
participation  of  divineness,  because  it  doth  raise  and  erect  the 
mind,  by  submitting  the  shews  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind  ; 
whereas  reason  doth  buckle  and  bow  the  mind  unto  the  nature  of 
things.' — Bacon,  'Advancement  of  Learning,  the  Second  Book/ 
Works  of  Francis  Bacon,  Spedding,  vol.  iii.  p.  343. 


POETRY : A  NOTE  5 

phrase :  ^Poetry,  according  to  Lord  Bacon,  has 
something  divine  in  it,  because  it  raises  the  mind  and 
hurries  it  into  sublimity,  by  conforming  the  shows  of 
things  to  the  desires  of  the  soul,  instead  of  subjecting 
the  soul  to  external  things,  as  reason  and  history  do.' 
And  Emerson  with  his  usual  succinctness  puts  it 
shortly  :  *  The  sensual  man  conforms  thoughts  to 
things  ;  the  poet  conforms  things  to  his  thoughts '  ;  or, 
to  use  the  language  employed  in  this  essay,  /Poetry 
subjects  external  things  to  the  soul,  instead  of  subject- 
ing the  soul,  as  Prose  does,  to  external  things,  /in  a 
word,  the  use  of  the  poetical  imagination  communicates 
an  ideal  pleasure,  a  pleasure  derived  ultimately  from 
the  realisation  by  the  soul  of  its  own  freedom  in  regard 
to  the  world, 

This,  if  the  greatest,  is  also  a  general  doctrine  of 
Poetry — the  doctrine,  if  we  may  call  it  so,  of  the  trans- 
cendence of  the  infinite.  Equally  general  is  Whitman's 
doctrine  of  a  pervading  infinity.  'The  land  and  sea, 
the  animals,  fishes,  and  birds,  the  sky  of  heaven  and 
the  orbs,  the  forests,  mountains,  and  rivers,  are  not 
small  themes  ;  but  folks  expect  of  the  poet  to  indicate 
more  than  the  beauty  and  dignity  which  always  attach 
to  dumb  real  objects, — they  expect  him  to  indicate  the 
path  between  reality  and  their  souls.  Men  and  women 
perceive  the  beauty  well  enough — probably  as  well  as 
he.  .  .  .  Outdoor  people  can  never  be  assisted  by 
poets  to  perceive :  some  may,  but  they  never  can. 
The  poetic  quality  is  not  marshalled  in  rhyme  or 
uniformity,  or  abstract  addresses  to  things,  nor  in 
melancholy  complaints  or  good  precepts,  but  is  the 
life  of  these  and  much  else,  and  is  in  the  soul.'  /what 
Whitman  says  here  is  not  that  the  soul,  by  virtue  of 


6  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

its  own  infinity,  transcends  experience,  but  that  in  all 
experience  it  recognises  an  infinity  akin  to  its  own  ; 
and  this  too  is  one  of  the  most  profound  things  that 
has  been  said  about  poetry. 

Yet  all  these  definitions  are  general  definitions,  and 
it  will  be  seen  that,  like  all  general  definitions  of 
poetry,  they  concern  the  essence,  as  also  that,  like  all 
general  definitions,  they  go  some  way  to  justify  Poe's 
famous  generalisation  about  long  poems  :  a  long  poem, 
to  express  his  theory  in  sensible  terms,  not  being  a 
long  poem  at  all,  but  merely  a  collection  of  short  poems 
with  something  intervening,  something  that  is  generally 
not  poetry,  but  also  generally  not  pure  prose  ;  some- 
thing of  a  middle  nature  which  at  once  preserves  and 
modulates  the  effect  of  the  more  intense  passages.1 

Yet  restricting  ourselves  to  poetry  that  is  essentially 
and  obviously  poetry,  poetry  that  could  be  recognised  as 
such  immediately  by  every  one — restricting  ourselves, 
that  is,  to  poetical  passages,  it  is  obvious  that  these 
may  differ  very  widely  in  their  nature,  and  that  there 
are  in  fact  several  kinds  of  poetry,  ^here  is,  in  the 


1  On  this  head  Mr.  Bradley  says:  'Naturally,  in  any  poem  not 
quite  short,  there  must  be  many  variations  and  grades  of  poetic 
intensity  ;  but  to  represent  the  differences  of  these  numerous  grades 
as  a  simple  antithesis  between  pure  poetry  and  mere  prose  is  like 
saying  that,  because  the  eyes  are  the  most  expressive  part  of  the 
face,  the  rest  of  the  face  expresses  nothing.  To  hold,  again,  that 
this  variation  of  intensity  is  a  defect  is  like  holding  that  a  face 
would  be  more  beautiful  if  it  were  all  eyes,  a  picture  better  if  the 
illumination  were  equally  intense  all  over  it,  a  symphony  better  if  it 
consisted  of  one  movement,  and  if  that  were  all  crisis^  And  to 
speak  as  if  a  small  poem  could  do  all  that  a  long  one  does,  and  do 
it  much  more  completely,  is  to  speak  as  though  a  humming-bird 
could  have  the  same  kind  of  beauty  as  an  eagle,  the  rainbow  in  a 
fountain  produce  the  same  effect  as  the  rainbow  in  the  sky,  or  a 
moorland  stream  thunder  like  Niagara.  A  long  poem,  as  we  have 


POETRY : A  NOTE  7 

first  place,  the  poetry  of  maturity,  and  opposed  to 
it,  or  at  least  alien  from  it,  there  is  young  man's 
poetry. 

Of  the  poetry  of  maturity  most  of  what  has  been  said 
above  will  be  found  to  be  true  ;  and  by  the  poetry  of 
maturity  I  mean  quintessential  poetry,  such  poetry  as 
is  to  be  found  especially  in  the  greatest  of  Words- 
worth's short  poems,  and  constantly  in  Shakespeare's 
later  work. 

To  distinguish  such  poetry  from  prose  would  be 
easy.  One  might  say  that  while  prose  explains  things 
from  the  outside,  this  poetry  of  maturity  is  concerned 
immediately  with  the  feeling  itself  and  is  occupied 
solely  in  expressing  the  feeling  as  felt.  There  is  a 
directness,  an  immediacy  of  connection  between  the 
felt  emotion  and  the  expression  of  that  emotion — a 
connection  as  close  as  that  between  a  blow  inflicted  on 
the  chest  and  the  answering  sound  of  the  blow.  Some 
experience  comes  to  the  poet  and  he  reverberates  with 
a  sympathetic  cry.  He  brings  you  near  to  life,  not  by 
criticising  life  but  by  replying  to  life.  Without  ex- 
planation or  apology,  allowing  no  time  for  reflection, 
such  poetry  places  the  quivering  heart  of  man  on  the 


seen,  requires  imaginative  powers  superfluous  in  a  short  one  ;  and 
it  would  be  easy  to  show  that  it  admits  of  strictly  poetic  effects  of 
the  highest  value  which  the  mere  brevity  of  a  short  one  excludes.' 
This  is  to  say,  that  of  a  long  poem  such  as  Wordsworth's  Prelude,  for 
example,  Bacon's  remark  quoted  above  would  be  true  in  a  wider 
sense  than  it  could  be  true  of  a  short  poem.  Nevertheless  there 
are  hosts  of  passages  in  the  Prelude  to  which  Bacon's  remark  could 
not  be  applied.  It  is  better,  therefore,  for  the  purposes  of  clarity 
not  to  include  long  poems  in  our  survey ;  not  to  include  them,  and 
yet  not  altogether  to  exclude  them  ;  this  note  serving  sufficiently,  for 
the  present,  to  connect  them  with  the  discussion. 


8  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

table.  So  that  in  those  sudden  bursts  of  volcanic 
speech  you  really  get  behind  language  altogether. 
You  have  expressed  what  has  never  been  expressed, 
what  could  never  have  been  expressed  except  by 
poetry.  You  seem  to  see  the  pulse  of  the  machine. 

The  most  concrete  instance  of  the  method  of  this 
kind  of  poetry  is  the  short  poem  Wordsworth  wrote  on 
the  death  of  Lucy.  These  Lucy  poems,  it  is  thought, 
are  the  record  of  a  real  experience,  and  it  is  supposed 
that  Wordsworth  in  youth  entertained  the  idea  of 
ultimately  marrying  a  cottage  girl  who  had  been 
brought  up  among  the  influences  of  Nature,  and  whose 
simplicity  and  gaiety  of  life  had  charmed  his  fancy. 
In  good  time  she  was  to  be  educated  so  as  to  fit  her  for 
a  place  in  the  poet's  social  world,  and  in  good  time  she 
was  to  be  old  enough  to  be  his  wife.  But  while  the 
poet  was  dreaming  of  the  future,  the  present  slipped 
into  the  past,  and  the  bright  child  was  no  more.  The 
news  dumfounded  him.  He  had  not  connected  with 
this  young  girl,  the  type  of  unfolding  life,  breathing 
gently  and  as  by  natural  law,  the  sombre  idea  of 
death.  He  should  have  done  so,  since  death  comes  to 
all  and  often  unexpectedly,  but  he  had  not  done  so. 
She  seemed  as  all  young  girls  seem,  and  even  espe- 
cially for  a  young  girl,  the  antithesis  of  death.  But 
now  she  is  dead,  and  Wordsworth,  in  his  first  realisa- 
tion of  the  fact,  can  realise  nothing  more.  He  does 
not  ask,  as  Shelley  asks,  of  the  nature  of  death.  The 
sole  thing  he  realises,  as  it  is  the  sole  thing  we  all 
realise  when  we  first  hear  of  the  death  of  a  beloved,  is 
that  she  is  no  longer  alive.  Even  of  her  life  past  he 
ceases  to  think  in  that  stunned  moment ;  her  activity 
has  become  inactivity,  and  in  the  stupid  brain  of  the 


POETRY : A  NOTE  9 

bereaved  the  one  sentence  chases  itself  eternally — she 
is  dead  : — 

'  A  slumber  did  my  spirit  seal  ; 

I  had  no  human  fears  : 
She  seemed  a  thing  that  could  not  feel 
The  touch  of  earthly  years. 

No  motion  has  she  now,  no  force  ; 

She  neither  hears  nor  sees  ; 
Rolled  round  in  earth's  diurnal  course, 

With  rocks,  and  stones,  and  trees.' 

In  those  few  lines  two  feelings  are  expressed  perfectly, 
the  feeling  of  vitality  and  the  feeling  of  the  inanimate, 
and  those  two  feelings  alone  are  expressed.  The  mind 
has  not'  reflected  upon  its  feeling,  indeed,  it  has  not 
moved.  We  are  brought  immediately  in  contact  with 
the  actual  sensation.  It  is  as  if  a  man  were  to  say,  *  I 
am  cold.' 

This  closeness  of  the  expression  to  the  predominant 
sensation  of  the  heart  is  well  instanced  by  a  hundred 
surprising  bursts  in  Shakespeare,  lightning  glimpses 
of  the  sources  of  emotion,  laying  bare,  as  by  a  flash, 
the  workings  within. 

Sometimes  it  is  done  by  a  mere  '  repartee ': — 

*  So  young,  my  lord,  and  true,' 

and  sometimes  by  a  sufficing  answer,  as  where  in 
Cymbeline  Imogen  in  tender  rebuke  says  to  her  hus- 
band':- 

'  Why  did  you  throw  your  wedded  lady  from  you  ? 
Think  that  you  are  upon  a  rock  ;  and  now 
Throw  me  again.' 

And  Posthumus  answers  : — 

'  Hang  there  like  fruit,  my  soul, 
Till  the  tree  die!'1 


1  These  two  instances  are  Tennyson's.     I  have  slightly  condensed 
his  language. — Life>  vol  ii.  p.  290. 


io  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

So  close  indeed  is  this  to  the  emotion  that  to  read  it  is 
like  seeing  a  gesture.  It  is  merely  the  translation  into 
words  of  an  eternal  embrace. 

In  such  ways,  then,  and  very  commonly,  Shake- 
speare makes  his  surprising  effects,  but  almost  equally 
commonly  he  startles  us  by  his  feelings  aloud,  getting 
the  thing  expressed  while  it  is  still  inchoate,  the  ex- 
pression also  sharing  an  inchoate  character.  Thus 
when  Macbeth  hears  of  his  wife's  death  there  is  his 
startled  comment — 

'  She  should  have  died  hereafter,' — 

an  expression  that  has  very  much  troubled  literal 
critics  in  search  for  a  precise  meaning.  The  truth  is, 
there  is  no  precise  meaning.  The  mind  of  man  in  its 
agony  has  become  articulate.  Indeed  this  is  too  much 
to  say,  for  so  near  is  the  language  to  the  feeling  that  it 
is  hardly  articulate  language.  It  seems  to  occupy  a 
middle  place  between  the  emotion  and  these  statements 
or  conclusions  which  we  usually  employ  to  express  it. 
A  reluctancy  to  accept  the  finality  of  doom,  there  is 
nothing  more  : — merely  the  movements  of  the  human 
spirit,  the  deep,  shadowy  movements,  caught  and 
expressed. 

Sometimes  Shakespeare  brings  us  into  contact  with 
the  actual  emotion  by  expressing,  very  fully,  intangible 
emotions.  There  is  the  famous  instance  of  Othello's 
reunion,  after  the  perils  of  the  voyage,  with  Desde- 
mona  at  Cyprus  :— 

'  If  it  were  now  to  die, 
'Twere  now  to  be  most  happy  ;  for,  I  fear, 
My  soul  hath  her  content  so  absolute, 
That  not  another  comfort  like  to  this 
Succeeds  in  unknown  fate.' 


POETRY: A  NOTE  n 

We  are  all  familiar  with  those  sudden  visitations  of 
apprehension  in  moments  of  great  happiness,  but  at 
such  moments  such  apprehensions  are  never  fully 
voiced.  We  are  not  sufficiently  near  to  our  own 
emotions  fully  to  voice  them — to  follow,  so  to  speak, 
along  their  track.  We  are  conscious  of  a  vague  move- 
ment of  apprehension  within,  but  we  cannot  feel  it 
distinguishably  enough  to  translate  it.  All  we  say  is 
'  I  am  frightened.' 

Sometimes  so  closely  does  Shakespeare  follow  a 
course  of  thought  that  he  startles  you  by  continuing 
to  express  it  when,  by  all  the  rules  of  morality,  the 
hero  ought  to  be  saying  something  else.  Othello  has 
committed  what  he  considers  the  judicial  murder  of 
Desdemona.  Her  vices  and  his  virtue,  in  his  estima- 
tion, alike  called  for  this.  Yet  so  great  is  her  love  for 
him  that,  with  her  dying  breath,  she  absolves  him  and 
takes  her  death  upon  herself.  This,  with  an  ordinary 
playwright,  would  remove  the  scales  from  Othello's 
eyes.  With  Shakespeare  nothing  of  the  kind  happens. 
Othello  is  aware  that  her  words,  heard  by  Emilia,  have 
exculpated  him,  and  he  refers  to  them  to  establish  his 
freedom  from  the  law.  Then  with  magnificent  mag- 
nanimity, once  his  innocence  is  legally  established,  he 
avows,  with  a  superhuman  pride,  that  the  fatal,  if 
necessary,  act  was  his.  But  the  expressions  he  uses  in 
his  avowal  have  naturally  puzzled  many.  He  speaks 
of  Desdemona  as  if  her  noble  lie  were  only  the  crown 
of  a  life  of  deception.  The  psychology,  in  short,  is  so 
literal,  so  instinctively  profound,  that  we  do  not  at  first 
realise  its  truth.  But  certain  it  is  that  it  is  accurate  ; 
that  Shakespeare,  when  he  was  writing  this  passage, 
was  no  longer  Shakespeare  but  Othello  himself,  so 


12  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

intimately  and  instinctively  does  he  follow  his  feeling.1 
A  man,  once  he  has  convinced  himself  of  the  essential 
badness  of  another,  not  only  believes  that  there  must 
be  a  bad  motive  for  everything  he  does,  but  can  see 
nothing  in  the  act  but  the  vice.  A  man  I  hate  steals 
a  loaf  to  succour  a  starving  child  ;  I  am  the  loudest 
in  crying  *  Thief! '  Of  such  consequence  is  the  set  of 
the  mind.  When  Othello  says 

*  She 's,  like  a  liar,  gone  to  burning  hell,' 

I  know  I  am  not  reading  a  play  but,  on  the  contrary, 
the  book  of  life. 

This  is  a  book,  however,  which  is  familiar  only  to 
the  mature  poet,  and  glimpses  of  this  kind  into  it  are 
seldom  afforded  by  young  poets,  and  never  by  poets 
who  are  characteristically  young.  On  the  contrary, 
while  the  characteristic  of  this  kind  of  mature  poetry 
is  its  concentration,  or  rather  its  essentialness,  for  it 
comes  straight  from  the  immediate  sensation  without 
any  aid  from  reflection,  the  characteristic  of  young 
man's  poetry  is  its  diffuseness. 

The  difference  between  these  two  kinds  of  poetry  is 
indeed  great.  If  one  is  the  poetry  that  is  of  the  sea 
itself,  and  its  sound  like  that  of  a  full  wave  coming  up 


Here  is  the  passage  : — 

1  EMIL.  O,  who  hath  done  this  deed  ? 
DBS.   Nobody  ;  I  myself ;  Farewell : 

Commend  me  to  my  kind  lord  ;  O,  farewell  !     [Dies. 
OTH.  Why,  how  should  she  be  murder'd  ? 
EMIL.  Alas!  who  knows? 

OTH.  You  heard  her  say  herself,  it  was  not  I. 
EMIL.  She  said  so  ;  I  must  needs  report  the  truth. 
OTH.   She 's,  like  a  liar,  gone  to  burning  hell ; 
'Twas  I  that  kill'd  her.' 


POETRY  :  A  NOTE  13 

with  force  on  a  rock,  the  other  is  the  poetry  that  deals 
with  the  ripples,  the  many  movements  made  by  the 
body  beneath.  Both  those  kinds  of  poetry,  of  course, 
are  emotional,  but  the  feeling  displays  itself  differently. 
In  the  one  case  all  is  in  obedience  to  the  deeply  felt 
emotion,  in  the  other  the  expression  is  less  immediately 
controlled  by  it,  plays  round  it,  as  it  were  ;  nor  is  the 
emotion  itself  in  any  degree  as  deep.  The  young  poet 
feels,  but  he  expatiates  on  his  feeling ;  he  doesn't 
express  it  directly.  Young  man's  poetry  is  the  rhap- 
sody of  appreciation.  The  young  poet  is  more  alive 
than  other  young  men,  though  all  young  men  are  more 
alive  than  mature  men,  to  the  beauty  and  charm  of 
colour,  glory  of  sight,  delight  of  scent  which  is  in  the 
world  ;  as  also  he  is  more  alive  to  the  delicious  ecstasies 
of  newly  awakened  feeling.  The  agility  of  his  own 
mind  is  a  never-failing  joy  to  the  young  poet.  The 
exercise  of  'all  intelligences  fair,'  the  surprising  and 
often  intricate  beauties  of  romantic  situations — these 
are  his  delights.  He  has  the  power,  and  he  enjoys 
using  the  power,  of  drawing  out  from  situations,  even 
from  phrases  (La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci),  all  their 
store  of  beauty  and  wonder.  The  young  poet  loves  to 
linger,  where  he  finds  a  poetical  situation  to  develop  it 
to  its  utmost,  even  to  tease  it.  He  has  long-drawn-out 
reveries  upon  the  details  of  any  interesting  emotion. 
A  man  loses  his  father.  Yes,  him  in  whose  likeness 
he  was  made,  from  whom  he  learnt  his  first  lessons, 
who  first  told  him  that  all  things  were  won  by  applica- 
tion, who  in  his  day  fought  many  battles,  whose  cellars 
contained  some  flasks  of  the  true  Falernian,  whose  dog 
used  to  accompany  him  in  all  his  walks  up  the  mountain- 
side, whose  failing  steps  the  young  poet  himself  guided, 


14  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

whose  hair  never  grew  entirely  white,  and  who  now 
rests  where  the  long  grass  waves — 'The  green,  green 
grass  of  Traquair  Kirkyard.'  The  young  poet  ex- 
patiates ;  suggest  a  theme  and  he  will  descant  on  it 
continuously.  A  mature  poet  tells  you  an  old  man 
dies  'and  sleeps  forgotten  in  his  quiet  grave.' 

The  most  evident  instances  of  young  man's  poetry 
are  to  be  found  in  Keats,  and  in  the  early  dramatic 
poems  of  Shakespeare.  Such  a  play  as  The  Two  Gentle- 
men of  Verona  is  full  of  them.  Two  old  men  cannot 
speak  of  a  boy's  going  a-voyaging  without  a  poetical 
excursion  on  travel  : — 


'  ANTONIO.  Tell  me,  Panthino,  what  sad  talk  was  that, 

Wherewith  my  brother  held  you  in  the  cloister  ? 
PANTHINO.  'Twas  of  his  nephew  Proteus,  your  son. 
ANTONIO.  Why,  what  of  him  ? 
PANTHINO.  He  wonder'd  that  your  lordship 

Would  suffer  him  to  spend  his  youth  at  home  ; 

While  other  men,  of  slender  reputation, 

Put  forth  their  sons  to  seek  preferment  out : 

Some,  to  the  wars,  to  try  their  fortune  there  ; 

Some,  to  discover  islands  far  away  ; 

Some,  to  the  studious  universities.' 


And  no  sooner  have  they  determined  that  Proteus  is  to 
journey  too,  than  Proteus  delays  to  sing  :— 

'  Thus  have  I  shunn'd  the  fire,  for  fear  of  burning  ; 
And  drench'd  me  in  the  sea,  where  I  am  drown'd  : 
I  fear'd  to  shew  my  father  Julia's  letter, 
Lest  he  should  take  exceptions  to  my  love  ; 
And  with  the  vantage  of  mine  own  excuse 
Hath  he  excepted  most  against  my  love. 
O,  how  this  spring  of  love  resembleth 
The  uncertain  glory  of  an  April  day  ; 
Which  now  shews  all  the  beauty  of  the  sun, 
And  by  and  by  a  cloud  takes  all  away  ! ' 


POETRY:  A  NOTE  15 

When  Lucetta  speaks  words  of  moderation  to  Julia, 
Julia  has  this  pretty  run  over  :— 

'  LUCETTA.  I  do  not  seek  to  quench  your  love's  hot  fire  ; 
But  qualify  the  fire's  extreme  rage, 
Lest  it  should  burn  above  the  bounds  of  reason. 
JULIA.  The  more  thou  dam'st  it  up,  the  more  it  burns  ; 
The  current,  that  with  gentle  murmur  glides, 
Thou  know'st,  being  stopp'd,  impatiently  doth  rage  ; 
But,  when  his  fair  course  is  not  hindered, 
He  makes  sweet  music  with  th'  enamel'd  stones, 
Giving  a  gentle  kiss  to  every  sedge 
He  overtaketh  in  his  pilgrimage  ; 
And  so  by  many  winding  nooks  he  strays, 
With  willing  sport  to  the  wild  ocean.' 

Again  Proteus,  the  methodical  traitor,  gives  advice 
to  the  foolish  Thurio  how  to  win  Silvia.  He  begins 
methodically  enough  :— 

'  But  you,  Sir  Thurio,  are  not  sharp  enough  ; 
You  must  lay  lime,  to  tangle  her  desires 
By  wailful  sonnets,  whose  composed  rhymes, 
Should  be  full  fraught  with  serviceable  vows.  .  .  . 
Say,  that  upon  the  altar  of  her  beauty 
You  sacrifice  your  tears,  your  sighs,  your  heart : 
Write  till  your  ink  be  dry  ;  and  with  your  tears 
Moist  it  again  ;  and  frame  some  feeling  line, 
That  may  discover  such  integrity  : — 
For  Orpheus'  lute  was  strung  with  poet's  sinews  ; 
Whose  golden  touch  could  soften  steel  and  stones, 
Make  tigers  tame,  and  huge  leviathans 
Forsake  unsounded  deeps  to  dance  on  sands.' 

Surely  here  the  poet  is  writing  a  very  different  kind 
of  poetry  from  that  of  the  mature  poet.  This  is  not 
feeling  straight  from  the  heart,  but  rather  feeling  played 
with,  felt  over,  as  some  delicious  morsel  is  felt  over  by 
the  tongue.  Nor  is  this  enough  to  say.  The  vision  of 
the  leviathans  has  carried  the  imagination  altogether 
away  from  the  original  subject  of  emotion,  carried  it 
away  to  fairy  shores.  All  through  this  play  what 


16  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Shakespeare  is  doing  is  poetising,  expatiating  on  hints, 
opportunities,  developing  the  melody. 

Of  the  same  kind  is  the  poetry  of  Richard  II.  :  it  is 
all  sung  to  a  complaining  lute.  Sometimes  too  in  his 
later  plays  Shakespeare  has  returns  of  this  youthful 
habit,  as  when  the  Queen  in  Hamlet,  announcing 
Ophelia's  death,  sings  her  song  of  willow  :— 

1  There  is  a  willow  grows  aslant  a  brook, 
That  shows  his  hoar  leaves  in  the  glassy  stream.' 

What  could  be  more  of  a  gratuitous  excursion  than 
this,  more  unnatural,  more  undramatic  ;  but  also,  if  we 
are  to  use  the  word  with  any  breadth  of  meaning  at  all, 
more  poetical  ? 

Sometimes  in  his  maturity,  even  when  he  is  most 
serious,  Shakespeare  allows  his  fancy  to  linger  on  an 
idea ;  it  is  solemn  play,  but  it  is  play,  as  in  the 
famous — 

'  Never,  lago.     Like  to  the  Pontic  Sea, 
Whose  icy  current  and  compulsive  course 
Ne'er  keeps  retiring  ebb,  but  keeps  due  on 
To  the  Propontic,  and  the  Hellespont  j 
Even  so  my  bloody  thoughts.' 

Indeed  we  may  say  that  of  all  poets  Shakespeare,  on 
account  of  his  expansive  imagination,  is  most  prone, 
even  in  maturity,  to  illustration.  But  here  the  whole 
passage,  though  by  no  means  a  direct  expression  of 
emotion,  may  be  said  to  be  in  obedience  to  the  deeply 
felt  emotion  behind.1  Such  passages  remind  us  that 


1  Similarly  the  sudden  outburst  of  the  expansive  Biron  at  the  close 
of  Love's  Labour's  Lost  is  an  instance  of  quintessential  poetry 
obtruding  amidst  young  man's  work. 

'  To  move  wild  laughter  in  the  throat  of  death  ? 
It  cannot  be  ;  it  is  impossible. 
Mirth  cannot  move  a  soul  in  agony.' 


POETRY:  A  NOTE  17 

between  young  man's  poetry  and  the  poetry  of  maturity, 
broad  as  the  distinction  is,  there  can  be  no  absolute 
dividing  line. 

Nevertheless  the  distinction  is  of  service  and  helps 
us  to  clear  our  ideas.  To  see  things  clearly  it  is  neces- 
sary to  distinguish.  / 

What  is  to  be  said  of  meditative  poetry  ?  There  are 
passages  in  the  poets  that  are  strictly  meditative,  pass- 
ages sometimes  that  are  merely  descriptive,  which  yet 
affect  us  as  essentially  poetical.  Meditation  is  an  in- 
tellectual process,  and  description  is  the  product  of 
observation.  It  is  as  possible  to  meditate  without  any 
emotion  at  all,  as  it  is  possible  to  describe.  Yes,  but 
the  meditation  does  not  affect  us  as  essentially  poetical 
till  the  meditation  has  awakened  feeling. 

There  is  a  sonnet  of  Wordsworth's  which  is  purely 
meditative,  even  discriminatively  meditative  : — 

'  Most  sweet  it  is  with  unuplifted  eyes 
To  pace  the  ground,  if  path  be  there  or  none, 
While  a  fair  region  round  the  traveller  lies 
Which  he  forbears  again  to  look  upon  ; 
Pleased  rather  with  some  soft  ideal  scene, 
The  work  of  Fancy,  or  some  happy  tone 
Of  meditation,  slipping  in  between 
The  beauty  coming  and  the  beauty  gone.' 

The  overwhelming  though  tender  grace  of  the  last  line 
comes  from  a  poet  who  is  overmastered  by  his 
emotion. 

If  we  turn  to  descriptive  passages  we  shall  find  that 
there  the  ultimate  merit — that  is,  the  ultimate  poetical 
truth,  is  equally  dependent  on  emotion. 

Mr.  George  Trevelyan  in  his  Essay  on  Meredith 
compares  two  passages  about  the  nightingale — one  from 


i8  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Meredith's    Night    of  Frost   in   May,    with    one   from 
Prometheus  Unbound. 

Meredith's  passage  runs  as  follows  : — 

*  In  this  shrill  hush  of  quietude, 
The  ear  conceived  a  severing  cry. 
Almost  it  let  the  sound  elude, 
When  chuckles  three,  a  warble  sly, 
From  hazels  of  the  garden  came, 
Near  by  the  crimson-windowed  farm. 
They  laid  the  trance  on  breath  and  frame, 
A  prelude  of  the  passion-charm. 
Then  soon  was  heard,  not  sooner  heard 
Than  answered,  doubled,  trebled,  more, 
Voice  of  an  Eden  in  the  bird 
Renewing  with  his  pipe  of  four 
The  sob  :  a  troubled  Eden,  rich 
In  throb  of  heart :  unnumbered  throats 
Flung  upward  at  a  fountain's  pitch, 
The  fervour  of  the  four  long  notes, 
That  on  the  fountain's  pool  subside, 
Exult  and  ruffle  and  upspring  : 
Endless  the  crossing  multiplied 
Of  silver  and  of  golden  string. 
There  chimed  a  bubbled  underbrew 
With  witch-wild  spray  of  vocal  dew.' 

That  is  very  particular.     Shelley  is  much  less  so  :— 

'  There  the  voluptuous  nightingales 
Are  awake  through  all  the  broad  noonday. 
When  one  with  bliss  or  sadness  fails, 
And  through  the  windless  ivy-boughs, 
Sick  with  sweet  love,  droops  dying  away 
On  its  mate's  music-panting  bosom  ; 
Another,  from  the  swinging  blossom 
Watching  to  catch  the  languid  close 
Of  the  last  strain,  then  lifts  on  high 
The  wings  of  the  weak  melody, — 
Till  some  new  strain  of  feeling  bear 
The  song,  and  all  the  woods  are  mute.' 

' 1  do  not  wish  to  dispute,'  says  Mr.  Trevelyan,  '  which 


POETRY  :  A  NOTE  19 

is  the  finer  passage  of  the  two,  but  I  know  which  is 
most  like  the  nightingale.'1 

But  this  is  the  Meredith  enthusiast.  In  fact,  Shelley's 
passage  is  more  like  ;  not  sharing  the  confusing  power 
of  Meredith's  over-definiteness,  it  is  more  nightingaley. 

Poetry  is  not  description,  it  is  sympathetic  emotion.2 
One  does  not  want  a  line  drawing  of  the  nightingale's 


1  The   choice   of  passages   is    Mr.    Trevelyan's.      Had  he  been 
anxious  to  bring  out  my  point   and  not   his   own  he  would  have 
chosen   a    passage   about  the   nightingale   from  the    poet   of  the 
nightingale  : — 

'  Now  more  than  ever  seems  it  rich  to  die, 
To  cease  upon  the  midnight  with  no  pain, 
While^hou  art  pouring  forth  thy  soul  abroad 
In  such  an  ecstasy  ! ' 

2  Cp.  Tolstoy's  definition  of  Art.     'Art  is  a  human  activity,  con- 
sisting in  this,   that   one  man   consciously,   by   means   of  certain 
external  signs,  hands  on  to  others  feelings  he  has  lived  through,  and 
that  other  people  are  infected  by  these  feelings,  and  also  experience 
them.' — Tolstoy's  What  is  Art?     Mr.  Aylmer  Maude's  translation. 

By  '  consciously'  Tolstoy  means  that  a  scream  of  agony,  however 
heartrending,  is  not  Art,  there  must  be  an  Art  purpose  ;  and  by 
'  hands  on  to  others'  he  means  that  the  mere  expression  of  emotion 
is  not  Art,  since  emotion  may  be  expressed  so  badly  as  not  to  excite 
a  contagious  emotion.  Thus  a  wretched  bombastic  tragedy  may 
excite  us  to  laughter,  not  tears. 

Tolstoy  is  not  discussing  the  standpoint  of  these  Essays,  that  the 
highest  Art  is  largely  unconscious.  He  does  not  deny,  he  explicitly 
states  that  in  the  deepest  poetry  or  art  the  poet  is  chiefly  thinking 
not  of  affecting  others,  but  of  expressing  himself.  Tolstoy's  pur- 
pose, however,  is  not  to  distinguish  between  spontaneous  and 
oratorical  art.  He  is  speaking  of  all  Art,  and  trying  to  define  the 
human  activity  broadly  understood. 

No  doubt  there  must  be  a  contact  between  the  emotion  of  the 
artist  and  that  of  the  audience.  This  is  necessary  to  Art,  and  since 
it  is  so  the  artist  may  be  said,  however  subconsciously,  always  in 
some  degree  to  intend  it.  The  mere  act  of  publication  proves  this. 
Yet  there  are  very  important  distinctions  in  the  degree  of  intention, 
and  these  Tolstoy  does  not  discuss. 


20  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

song  ;  what  one  wants,  and  what  the  poet  alone  can 
give,  is  the  effect  produced  by  it : — 

'And  this  is  the  soul's  heaven,  to  have  felt.'1 

'  Description,'  says  Mill,  '  is  not  poetry  because  there  is 
descriptive  poetry.  But  an  object  which  admits  of 
being  described  may  also  furnish  an  occasion  for  the 
generation  of  poetry,  which  we  thereupon  choose  to 
call  descriptive.  The  poetry  is  not  in  the  object  itself, 
but  in  the  state  of  mind  in  which  it  may  be  con- 
templated.'2 

Of  those  descriptions  of  Milton's  that  come  home  to 
us  we  can  say  the  same  : — 

'  Anon  they  move 

In  perfect  phalanx  to  the  Dorian  mood 
Of  flutes  and  soft  recorders  ;  such  as  rais'd 
To  height  of  noblest  temper  heroes  old 
Arming  to  battle  ;  and  instead  of  rage 
Deliberate  valour  breath'd,  firm  and  unmov'd 
With  dread  of  death  to  flight  or  foul  retreat ; 
Nor  wanting  power  to  mitigate  and  'suage 
With  solemn  touches  troubled  thoughts,  and  chase 
Anguish,  and  doubt,  and  fear,  and  sorrow,  and  pain, 
From  mortal  or  immortal  minds.'  3 

As  Milton  thinks  of  the  troubles  music  softens,  he 
thinks  of  all  the  troubles  of  man — 

'Anguish,  and  doubt,  and  fear,  and  sorrow,  and  pain,'— 

and,  so  thinking,  his  heart  is  bowed  beneath  the  sense 
of  mortal  calamity,  bowed  and  shaken  and  filled  by  it  as 
is  his  noble  line.  His  host  moves  humanly  before  us  ; 


1  Sonnet,  Winter  Heavens,  Meredith. 

2  Mill,    Thoughts  on  Poetry  and  its    Varieties,     In  the  original 
passage  there  are  also  references  to  didactic  poetry,  but  as  tending 
both  to  confusion  and  controversy  I  leave  them  out. 

3  Paradise  Lost,  i.  549. 


POETRY:  A  NOTE  21 

it  is  described  to  the  life  because  his  description  has 
ended  on  an  emotional  chord. 

The  effect  of  a  long  poem,  of  which  it  is  so  difficult  to 
speak,  is  also  similar.  It  has  as  a  whole  impressed 
our  feeling.1  Sometimes  its  effect  is  single  and  in- 
divisible, as  is  the  case  with  Morris's  Sigurd,  the 
dEneid,  or  Longfellow's  Evangeline  : — 

*  Told  she  the  tale  of  the  fair  Lilianu  who  was  wooed  by  a  phantom.' 

Sometimes  the  impression  left  is  the  impression  of  a 
series  of  emotional  effects,  as  in  Tennyson's  Idylls,  or, 
in  lesser  degree,  the  Odyssey,  or  still  less,  because  the 
separate  effects  are  so  like,  The  Faeiy  Queen  or  The 
Prelude.  In  those  last  cases,  though  one  does  not 
quite  get  a  single  impression,  the  separate  impressions 
are  so  similar  as  to  produce  cumulatively  almost  the 
effect  of  unity.  Sometimes,  though  the  impression  is 
the  impression  of  a  whole,  that  impression  is  not 
poetical,  as  with  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  and  this  is 
because  the  whole,  allowing  for  surprising  spurts  of 
emotion,  is  the  result  of  an  intellectual  process. 

It  is  not  easy  to  define  poetry — a  dream,  a  sigh,  an 
exhalation  : — 

'  This  lady  of  the  luting  tongue, 

The  flash  in  darkness,  billow's  grace.' 

Mr.  Meredith  has  indeed  attempted  it : — 

'That  was  the  chirp  of  Ariel 

You  heard,  as  overhead  it  flew, 
The  farther  going  more  to  dwell, 

And  wing  our  green  to  wed  our  blue  ; 


1  And  such  is  the  effect  sometimes  even  of  prose  dramas,  e.g. 
Tourgenieffs  most  beautiful  play  The  Bread  of  Others.  There  are 
few  poetical  passages  in  it,  but  the  effect  of  the  whole  is  the  effect 
of  a  poem. 


22  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

But  whether  note  of  joy  or  knell, 
Not  his  own  Father-singer  knew  ; 

Nor  yet  can  any  mortal  tell, 

Save  only  how  it  shivers  through  ; 

The  breast  of  us  a  sounded  shell, 
The  blood  of  us  a  lighted  dew.' 

That  was  poetry,  that  which  we  seemed  to  hear  just 
now  ;  and  the  more  faint,  the  more  the  sound  seemed 
to  die  off  into  an  illimitable  vague  and  to  be  lost  in  the 
infinite,  the  more  it  haunts  us  and  helps  to  uplift  our 
grosser  part  into  communion  with  our  spirit,  which 
itself  is  part  of  the  spirit  of  all.  But  whether  this 
ecstasy  derived  from  poetry  is  in  a  strict  sense  pleasur- 
able no  one  can  tell,  not  even  the  chief  of  poetry- 
makers,  Shakespeare,  himself.  Our  eyes  are  '  wet  with 
most  delicious  tears.'  We  cannot  say  much  more  than 
that,  except  that  a  real  poetical  experience  makes  our 
being  vibrate  as  nothing  else  can.  We  seem,  for  the 
moment,  ourselves  to  be  participant  in  the  making  of 
this  heavenly  harmony  ;  seem  to  emit,  like  the  dewdrop 
touched  with  the  sun,  a  light  which  is  our  own.1 


1  For  this  paraphrase  of  a  difficult  little  poem,  I  am  greatly 
indebted  to  Mr.  Trevelyan's  detailed  explanation,  The  Poetry  and 
Philosophy  of  George  Meredith,  pp.  72-74. 


GRAY  23 


GRAY 

IF  we  understood  anything  perfectly,  we  should  under- 
stand everything.  It  is  equally  true  that  to  understand 
anything  perfectly,  we  must  understand  everything. 
Yet  one  must  make  shift  to  deal  with  the  eighteenth 
century  in  England  without  attempting  an  analysis 
of  the  precedent  civilisations  of  Greece  and  Rome  ; 
civilisations  in  which  the  art  of  living  had  been  culti- 
vated to  a  high  degree,  but  ultimately  destroyed,  partly 
by  the  incursion  of  barbarians,  partly  by  the  growth 
of  Christianity,  a  religion  which  made  war  against 
the  pride  of  the  world.  There  arose,  in  what  we  call 
the  Dark  Ages,  what  we  know  as  the  Monastic  Ideal, 
a  mode  of  thought  which  drew  the  finer  spirits  away 
from  life  and  absorbed  them  in  the  contemplation  of 
death  and  a  life  to  come,  leaving  meanwhile  the  earth 
itself,  denuded  of  ideals,  a  prey  to  the  strong  and 
violent  man.  The  true  Salamanca  University  was 
then  the  cloister,  and  outside  '  the  loud-roaring  hail- 
storms '  fell.  What  remains  to  us  from  those  ages  of 
quietism  and  riot  is  the  memory  of  bloody  deeds, 
often  of  high  tragic  value,  and  of  a  selected  existence 
solacing  itself  in  seclusion. 

The  first  signs  of  the  serious  re-emergence  of  the 
human  spirit  synchronise  roughly  with  the  Latin 
Empire  of  Constantinople,  when  interest  in  Roman 
learning  and  Roman  culture,  never  wholly  forgotten 


24  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

by  the  Church,  had  for  some  time  begun  to  revive.  The 
greatest  achievement  of  the  Roman  genius  was  legal, 
and  one  feature  of  this  Latin  revival  or  Pre-renascence 
was  a  greatly  increased  interest  in  the  Pandects. 
Places  for  learning  were  established,  and  within  a 
space  of  fifty  years  there  were  founded  the  Universities 
of  Paris,  Oxford,  Siena,  Naples,  Padua,  Cambridge 
and  Salamanca. 

If  we  are  to  think  of  this  movement  as  a  renascence, 
we  must  date  the  Renascence  itself  as  beginning  in 
the  thirteenth  and  not  in  the  fifteenth  century.  In 
truth,  the  whole  process  is  gradual ;  from  those  Latin 
beginnings  through  Aquinas,  Roger  Bacon,  Dante 
and  Petrarch  and  the  new  spirit  of  *  Gothicness '  animat- 
ing Gothic  architecture,  to  the  fully  quickened  interest 
in  Greek  literature  which  distinguishes  the  Renas- 
cence proper. 

Yet,  however  gradual  the  process,  we  can  trace  in  the 
sixteenth  century  an  immense  new  impetus  coming  to 
England.  Erasmus  came  here  in  1497.  The  last  voyage 
of  Columbus  ended  in  1504.  Luther  died  in  1546.  The 
great  work  of  Copernicus  had  been  published  in  1543. 

That  group  of  dates  marks  the  end  of  the  old  world 
in  England  and  the  opening  of  the  new.  There  is 
more  difference  between  Chaucer's  mental  world  and 
Shakespeare's  than  between  Shakespeare's  and  our 
own.  Our  Shakespeare — and  for  this  reason  he  is  our 
Shakespeare — stands  on  the  threshold  of  modern  times. 
It  was  for  him  to  enter  into  the  realisation  of  a  planet 
half  unknown  ;  when  you  came  to  the  end  of  what 
you  knew  there  was  everywhere  an  open  door,  '  antres 
vast  and  deserts  idle,'  in  which  there  might  be 
Eldorado,  New  Atlantis,  Utopia. 


GRAY  25 

The  old  world  —  what  was  it?  A  flat  disc,  lit 
pleasantly  by  a  travelling  sun  and  moon  with  attendant 
ladies  in  diamonds,  sometimes  in  bright  gold,  the 
patines  with  which  the  heavens  were  thick  inlaid  ; 
a  flat  disc — terra  firma,  round  which  there  was  mare 
magnum,  the  sea. 

A  new  earth  and  a  new  heaven  faced  the  Elizabethans, 
and  this  both  in  a  material  and  a  spiritual  sense.  In 
religion  it  was  coming  to  be  recognised  that  the  last 
word  had  not  been  said.  A  hundred  years  after 
Grocyn  had  taught  Erasmus,  the  intellectuals  every- 
where had  inherited  the  humane  labours  of  the  scholars, 
and  in  England,  while  Shakespeare  was  still  young, 
Greece,  with  her  old  new  literature,  lived  again. 
There  dawned  upon  the  view  undreamed-of  civilisa- 
tions, and  an  endless  vista  of  speculation  in  religion, 
morals,  politics.  In  that  age  you  could  discover  new 
lands  ;  there  were  disclosed,  waiting  to  be  explored, 
new  continents  of  thought.  What  a  field  for  the 
imagination  to  play  in  ! l 

The  great  age  of  imagination  in  England  was  thus 
the  Elizabethan  Age,  the  age  of  emotional  treatment, 
of  generalisation.  All  sides  of  man  were  presented 
poetically,  whether  it  was  his  philosophical  and  reflec- 
tive side  as  with  Bacon,  his  inquiring  and  historiogra- 
phical  side  as  with  Raleigh,  or  as  with  Shakespeare  his 
poetical  side  :  in  that  age  even  poetry  was  pre-eminently 
poetical. 

Upon  the  sixteenth  century  in  England  there 
followed  the  seventeenth  century  —  one  must  call  it 

1  Cp.  Spenser's  Faery  Queen,  Book  ii.  v.  3  : 

'  Why  then  should  witlesse  man  so  much  misweene, 
That  nothing  is,  but  that  which  he  hath  scene  ? ' 


26  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

the  seventeenth  century,  for  there  is  no  other  single 
phrase  that  will  define  a  period  that  is  notable  as  an 
ending,  a  thing  in  itself,  and  a  beginning.  After  the 
blowing  of  great  winds  there  is  a  lull.  The  English 
imagination  had  said  its  say,  and  the  seventeenth 
century  is  primarily  to  be  characterised  as  a  period 
in  literature  of  imaginative  exhaustion.  The  poets, 
at  any  rate,  had  nothing  new  of  consequence  to  tell. 
The  big  things  about  the  beginning  had  been  said. 
From  this  point  of  view,  then,  the  seventeenth  century 
is  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

But  it  exists  for  itself ;  there  is  no  quiescence  ;  the 
oscillation  continues  ;  the  waves,  though  not  mountains 
high,  still  rock.  Close  upon  the  heels  of  the  great 
age  of  poetry  treads  the  age  of  artifice.  In  poetry, 
trifles,  prettiness,  a  careless  shoe-string,  dressed-up 
theology,  tricks  of  phrase,  take  the  place  of  the 
imaginative  revel.  One  poet  was  still  writing  great 
poetry,  but  his  was  the  poetry  of  lament :  with  the 
failure  of  his  political  hopes  for  man,  Paradise  was 
lost.  In  prose  too,  though  there  was  a  much  more 
various  effort,  there  was  the  same  lack  of  large  and 
definite  purpose.  People  wrote,  in  any  style  or  no 
style,  on  what  they  pleased.  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
and  Lord  Herbert,  Urquhart,  Harrington  or  Burton, 
Izaak  Walton,  Feltham,  Hobbes — there  is  no  sequence. 
In  brief,  the  seventeenth  century,  which  in  England 
doesn't  last  for  nearly  a  century  (1610  to  1670  perhaps), 
is  the  kind  of  century  that  has  little  interest,  the  kind 
of  century  one  would  expect — a  transition  century, 
being  in  part  the  tossing  to  and  fro  after  the  storm, 
and  in  part  the  first  faint  beginnings  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  One  does  see  emerging  from  the  disturbance 


GRAY  27 

the  first  faint  beginnings  of  a  school  of  history,  of 
social  politics,  the  first  faint  beginnings  of  a  school 
interested  in  character.  Before  the  seventeenth  century 
had  ended,  the  eighteenth  century  had  begun. 

Of  all  modern  centuries  the  eighteenth  century  is 
the  most  indispensable ;  it  was  the  necessary  preliminary 
to  the  building  of  a  completely  modern  life.  The 
course  of  nineteenth-century  literature  might  well 
have  been  different,  and  the  men  of  to-day  would  still 
have  been  what  they  are.  What  was  indispensable 
was  the  laying  of  the  foundations.  When  the 
eighteenth  century1  began  in  England  (let  us  say  in 
1670,  when  men  had  settled  down  after  the  Revolu- 
tion and  Restoration)  it  was  recognised  on  every  hand 
that  the  modern  world  had  begun.  The  new  ideas 
of  the  sixteenth  century  had  to  some  extent  been 
assimilated  ;  the  new  discoveries  were  being  under- 
stood. A  truly  modern  society  was  coming  into 
existence.  To  investigate  its  principles,  the  necessary 
conditions  of  its  life,  that  was  the  task  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  or  in  Mr.  Courthope's  phrases,  its  task  *  was 
to  recombine  the  shattered  forms  of  the  old  national  life 
into  a  system  suited  to  modern  circumstances,'  .  .  .  'the 
work  of  the  eighteenth  century  consisted  in  providing 
a  safe  mode  of  transition  from  the  manners  of  mediaeval 
to  those  of  modern  society.' 

The  work  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  a  work  of 
investigation,  classification,  arrangement.  No  longer 
have  we  Shakespeare  standing  tip-toe  in  face  of  a  rush 


1  The  eighteenth  century  is  the  process  of  getting  things  in  order. 
It  therefore  begins  with  the  first  signs  of  order.  Sir  William  Temple 
is  in  spirit  and  tone  an  eighteenth-century  writer,  and  he  died  in 
1699. 


28  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

of  new  ideas.  Modern  man  is  no  longer  surprised  at 
his  own  emergence  :  on  the  contrary,  he  sits  down  to 
contemplate  himself;  his  business  now  is  to  inquire 
how  he  came  into  being,  and  what,  in  fact,  he  is.  It 
is  not  by  chance  that  civilisations  differ  from  each 
other,  and  the  name  of  Gibbon  reminds  us  of  the  time 
when  history  was  discovered  to  be  a  science.  Men 
have  different  opinions,  but  the  movements  of  the 
mind,  says  Hume,  are  explicable.  It  was  Newton  and 
Herschel  who  explained  that  we  lived  in  a  Universe  and 
not  a  Chaos.  By  1750  William  Hunter  was  lecturing 
at  the  school  of  surgery  in  London.  Black  and 
Priestley  in  chemistry  attest  the  activity  of  the  new 
science  of  medicine.  Before  the  century  was  ended 
Bentham  had  laid  firmly  the  foundation  of  a  science 
of  legislation.1  Nor  was  this  interest  in  investigation 
and  analysis  without  a  general  manifestation.  A  new 
interest  in  man  and  his  character  prompted  even  the 
imagination  to  fresh  efforts.  Gulliver's  Travels  was 
Swift's  reply  to  a  sociological  inquiry.  If  you  asked 
Defoe:  How  would  man  comport  himself  in  solitude? 
the  answer  was  'Robinson  Crusoe.'  Some  observa- 
tion of  the  ways  of  human  beings  in  the  country 
preceded  the  papers  devoted  to  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley. 
Character  study  was  the  chief  impulse  to  imaginative 
composition,  and  Richardson,  Fielding,  Sterne  spin 
out  their  stories  with  no  other  end. 

What  then  had  the  eighteenth  century  to  do?     It 
had,  standing  on  the  shoulders  of  the  sixteenth  century, 


1  It  was  the  same  abroad.  Le  Sage,  Montesquieu,  Bayle, 
Voltaire  all  equally  indicate  the  new  desire  to  analyse  man,  his 
habits  and  beliefs,  and  to  found  a  new  beginning  starting  from  that 
analysis. 


GRAY  29 

to  deal  with  modern  man.  It  could  not  give  free  rein 
to  an  emotional  treatment  because,  not  to  speak  of  the 
sixteenth  century  having  exhausted  emotion,  it  was 
just  because  too  free  a  rein  had  been  given  to  varying 
and  passing  emotions  that  the  seventeenth  century  had 
not  done  more  of  the  work  of  the  eighteenth.  Nor 
could  the  eighteenth  century  deal  with  man  on  simple 
and  broad  lines.  Since  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
whole  complicated  basis  of  modern  life  had  been  laid. 
It  was  the  office  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  deal  with 
crowds  and  allow  for  variety,  with  cities  and  to  speak 
with  urbanity. 

This  was  the  time  of  the  cognoscenti,  the  literati, 
the  day  for  the  clear  intellect,  the  years  of  marking 
time,  the  period  in  which  what  was  already  roughly 
known  was  mapped  out ;  a  geological  survey  of  what 
was  habitable  human  country.  Such  map-making  was 
essential  to  subsequent  progress.  To  employ  a  com- 
mercial metaphor,  in  the  eighteenth  century  stock  was 
taken  of  the  business  of  mankind,  and  to  put  a  business 
on  a  satisfactory  footing  is  a  preliminary  to  profitable 
results. 

Yet  in  itself  the  business  of  stocktaking  is  unemo- 
tional. It  was  the  business  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
but  it  was  a  business  extremely  ill  suited  to  poetry. 

The  true  interests  of  the  eighteenth  century  were 
political,  social,  historical,  the  interests  of  prose  ;  and 
while  the  poets  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  right 
in  this  that  they  spoke  of  the  real  interests1  of  the 


1  Mr.     Courthope    quotes    Pope    as    taking    credit    (Epistle    to 
Arbuthnof) 

'  That  not  in  fancy's  maze  he  wander'd  long, 
But  stooped  to  truth,  and  moralised  his  song.' 


30  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

eighteenth  century,    for    this    reason    their    poetry    is 
weak — at  least,  this  is  why  it  is  weak  as  poetry. 

If  it  be  said  they  were  free  to  take  another  course, 
they  were  free,  in  that  case,  only  to  write  poetry 
which  did  not  reflect  their  age,  and  which,  therefore, 
whatever  its  aesthetic  elegance,  would  have  been 
worthless. 

It  is  true  that  their  success  in  the  course  they  chose 
— the  only  course  really  open  to  them — was  but  partial. 
What  is  remarkable,  considering  the  nature  of  their 
task,  is  that  they  should  have  achieved  success  at  all. 
For  the  sudden  task  that  confronted  them  was  not 
merely  to  extend  the  domain  of  poetry,  it  was  to 
extend  it  to  cover  minutiae  and  detail.  Poetry  was 
to  conquer,  and  immediately,  a  whole  new  province, 
the  province  of  social  life.  If  Poetry  was  to  be  a  true 
daughter  of  the  eighteenth  century,  she  was  to  learn, 
within  fifty  years  of  the  publication  of  Paradise  Lost, 
to  speak  the  language  of  criticism — a  criticism  of 
religion,  morals,  politics,  the  seasons,  society  and 
regimen. 

How  was  such  a  task  to  be  accomplished,  and  who 
has  yet  written  the  poem  on  mending  a  wheelbarrow 
which  Dr.  Craik  instanced  as  an  exercise  in  the 
familiar? 

Part  of  the  danger  lay  in  the  consciousness  of 
difficulty.  The  Elizabethans  spoke,  without  a  thought 
of  what  they  chose,  because  they  did  not  wish  to  speak 
of  anything  that  had  not  a  primary  imaginative  appeal. 
But  the  eighteenth-century  poets  stood  trembling  on 
the  verge  of  a  new  land.  No  great  emotional  impulse 
was  behind  them  ;  what  impelled  them  to  their  adven- 
ture was  merely  the  love  of  method  and  good  sense. 


GRAY  31 

Unemotional  people,  who  are  also  intelligent,  act 
according  to  habit,  and  it  is  in  every  case  the  habit  of 
those  who  are  afraid  of  speaking  too  familiarly  to  cover 
their  shamefacedness  with  a  delicacy  of  speech.  In 
other  words,  the  difficulty  that  faced  the  eighteenth- 
century  poets  was  that  the  subjects  of  which  they 
especially  wished  to  speak  were  not  specially  sus- 
ceptible of  poetical  treatment ;  and  so  to  meet  this 
difficulty  they  invented  a  manner  that,  on  the  surface, 
was  avowedly  poetical — a  dignified,  sometimes  pre- 
tentious style,  meant  to  disguise  the  prosaic  nature 
of  their  task.1  Thus  even  Cowper,  remembering  how 
fond  his  mother  was  of  him  and  how  on  his  way  to 


1  There  are  many  instances  of  the  designedly  and  falsely  dignified 
in  Cowper's  'Lines  on  receiving  his  Mother's  Picture,'  instances 
which  alternate  most  curiously  with  instances  of  the  poignantly 
simple.  For  example,  compare  this  address  to  his  mother's  spirit : 

'  Thou,  as  a  gallant  bark  from  Albion's  coast 
(The  storms  all  weather'd,  and  the  ocean  cross'd), 
Shoots  into  port  at  some  well-haven'd  isle, 
Where  spices  breathe,  and  brighter  seasons  smile, 
There  sits  quiescent  on  the  floods,  that  show 
Her  beauteous  form  reflected  clear  below, 
While  airs  impregnated  with  incense  play 
Around  her,  fanning  light  her  streamers  gay  ; 
So  thou,  with  sails  how  swift  !  hast  reach'd  the  shore 
"  Where  tempests  never  beat  nor  billows  roar,'" 

with  the  immortally  affecting  lines  : 

'  Where  once  we  dwelt  our  name  is  heard  no  more, 
Children  not  thine  have  trod  my  nursery  floor  ; 
And  where  the  gardener  Robin,  day  by  day, 
Drew  me  to  school  along  the  public  way, 
Delighted  with  my  bauble  coach,  and  wrapp'd 
In  scarlet  mantle  warm,  and  velvet  cap, 
'Tis  now  become  a  history  little  known, 
That  once  we  call'd  the  pastoral  house  our  own.' 


32  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

school  she  stuffed  his  pockets  with  sweets,  writes  like 
this  when  he  is  afraid  : — 

^       '  Thy  morning  bounties  ere  I  left  my  home, 
The  biscuit,  or  confectionary  plum.' 

Having  to  speak  of  many  familiar  and  trivial  sub- 
jects, the  poets,  by  an  instinct  of  self-protection, 
adopted  a  high-sounding  speech. 

Another  way  to  meet  the  difficulty,  and  it  was  the 
way  they  all  attempted  later,  was  to  restrict  the  range 
of  subject,  to  rule  out  as  too  obviously  familiar  many 
trifles,  and  to  speak  only  of  the  more  dignified  among 
familiar  things.  But  a  designed  selection  of  this  kind, 
the  habit  of  the  mind  resting  on  the  notion  of  dignity, 
could  not  but  correspondingly  affect,  however  insensibly, 
the  tone  of  the  style.  The  tendency  to  select  the 
matter  led  necessarily  to  a  tendency  to  select  the 
manner. 

So  that  however  they  approached  their  task,  the 
very  nature  of  their  task,  as  also  the  methodical  method 
of  their  approach,  prescribed  one  ending.  If  they 
selected  their  subjects  there  was  a  tendency  to  select 
a  correspondent  tone.  If  they  did  not  select  their  sub- 
jects there  was  a  temptation,  for  purposes  of  self-protec- 
tion, to  adopt  a  disguising  manner.  In  either  case  the 
style  adopted  was  similar,  the  style  that  we  now  know 
as  heroic. 

Nor  is  this  the  end  of  a  painful  poetical  story.  The 
adoption  of  a  selected  style  tended  further  to  restrict 
the  subject.  It  may  not  be  easy  in  poetry  to  speak  of 
sweets,  but  it  is  shortly  seen  to  be  impossible  to  speak 
of  a  confectionary  plum.  High-sounding  subjects  are 
the  only  subjects  that  can  be  spoken  of  in  this  way. 


GRAY  33 

If  you  are  to  use  Latin  you  must  write  of  ^neas  and 
of  Dido. 

By  this  process  poetry,  by  the  end  of  the  century,, 
was  tied  up  in  a  corner.  The  artifice  in  the  manner 
tended  further  to  restrict  the  subjects  ;  the  further 
restriction  of  subjects  tended  further  to  artificialise  the 
style.  To  find  the  remedy  was  to  free  both  together, 
and  to  free  both  together  was  the  work  of  the  Romantic 
Revival. 

Looking  back  on  the  history  of  the  eighteenth-century 
process,  we  can  see  the  curious  spectacle  of  an  aim 
negativing  itself.  The  restrictions  to  which  poetry 
submitted  in  the  eighteenth  century  were  endured  for 
a  purpose.  The  general  design  was  to  extend  the 
sphere  of  poetry ;  with  the  object  of  extending  her 
sphere,  concessions  were  made  to  habit  and  reason,  and 
in  the  end  these  concessions  were  the  cause  of  a  restric- 
tion thrice  restricted. 

Not  all  the  writers,  of  course,  nor  even  all  the  periods 
of  the  eighteenth  century  carried  their  system  to  its 
logical  result,  but  sheer  triumphs  of  social  poetry  such 
as  Goldsmith's  Deserted  Village  are  few.1  In  the  main, 
the  eighteenth-century  poetry,  even  at  its  best,  gives 
itself  airs.  Pope's  points  are  too  consciously  pithy  ; 
Thomson  in  his  Seasons  carries  it,  though  with  elegance, 
too  high  ;  and  Johnson's  voice,  though  dignified  in  his 
London^  is  loud.  At  a  lower  elevation,  the  poetry  of 
this  century  is  mere  stilts.  What,  however,  is  chiefly 
irritating  is  that  it  is  seldom  either  bad  or  good,  but 
more  commonly  both.  In  the  most  characteristic  piece 
left  to  us,  Johnson's  tribute  to  the  dead  surgeon,  we 


The  pompous  quatrain  at  the  end  is  Johnson's. 

C 


34  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

have  both  what  the  century  tried  to  do  occasionally 
perfectly  done,  and  also  the  poetical  style  defensive 
openly  displayed  : — 

*  Condemn'd  to  Hope's  delusive  mine, 

As  on  we  toil  from  day  to  day, 
By  sudden  blasts,  or  slow  decline, 
Our  social  comforts  drop  away.3 

The  second  and  fourth  lines  are  unexceptionable, 
while  the  first  is  beyond  redemption. 

'  Well  try'd  through  many  a  varying  year, 

See  Levet  to  the  grave  descend, 
Officious,  innocent,  sincere, 
Of  ev'ry  friendless  name  the  friend. 

Yet  still  he  fills  Affection's  eye, 

Obscurely  wise,  and  coarsely  kind  ; 

Nor,  letter' d  Arrogance,  deny 
Thy  praise  to  merit  unrefin'd.' 

These  touching  verses,  without  the  seventh  and  eighth 
lines,  would  have  no  blemish  of  artificiality,  but  the 
particularity  of  the  praise  is  the  particularity  of  a  prose 
age,  an  age  capable  of  emotion  yet  typically  critical. 

*  When  fainting  nature  called  for  aid, 

And  hov'ring  death  prepar'd  the  blow, 
His  vig'rous  remedy  display 'd 
The  pow'r  of  art  without  the  show. 

In  misery's  darkest  cavern  known, 

His  useful  care  was  ever  nigh, 
Where  hopeless  anguish  poured  his  groan, 

And  lonely  want  retired  to  die.5 

Though  the  fourth  line,  a  mere  contortion,  may  dim 
the  moderate  badness  of  the  rest,  it  would  be  impossible 
in  eight  lines  to  epitomise  better  the  deficiencies  of  the 
method. 


GRAY  35 

There  are  more  stanzas  : — 

*  No  summons  mock'd  by  chill  delay, 
No  petty  gain  disdain'd  by  pride, 
The  modest  wants  of  ev'ry  day 
The  toil  of  ev'ry  day  supply'd. 

His  virtues  walk'd  their  narrow  round, 
Nor  made  a  pause,  nor  left  a  void  ; 

And  sure  th'  Eternal  Master  found 
The  single  talent  well  employ'd.' 

How  did  the  eighteenth  century  come  to  write  like 
this  ?  By  no  miracle.  So  always  the  eighteenth  century 
could  have  written,  had  it  never  written  till  it  was 
emotionally  moved  by  its  survey.  Here  the  weight 
of  Johnson's  feeling  carries  him  through  the  conven- 
tion. But  if  we  wish  an  example  of  what  the  eighteenth 
century  could  do,  we  shall  have  to  leave  Johnson  and 
turn  to  Gray.1 


1  No  account  of  the  eighteenth  century  can  omit  mention  of  the 
romantic  side-current,  the  romantic  work,  which  was  not  its  work,  done 
in  it,  the  romantic  work  done  by  the  way.  The  passages  at  the  end 
of  Pope's  Messiah  and  Dunciad  are  not  typical  eighteenth-century 
work.  Shenstone  in  his  Schoolmistress,  though  the  subject  is  purely 
social,  speaks  often  the  language  of  poetry.  Thomson,  in  his  Castle 
of  Indolence,  is  the  first  to  anticipate  the  antique  music  of  Keats,  and 
Collins's  Ode  to  Evening  is  not  placeable  in  time.  Dryden,  in  Mr. 
Courthope's  fine  phrase,  'the  immediate  father  of  the  whole  line,'  is 
distinguished  as  much  for  the  airy  grace  of  some  of  his  lyrics  as  for 
the  merits  of  his  day. 

'  And  still  at  every  close,'  he  says  in  The  Flower  and  the  Leaf— 
'  And  still  at  every  close  she  would  repeat 

The  burden  of  the  song,  The  daisy  is  so  sweet, 

The  daisy  is  so  sweet.' 

This  was  got  from  the  weak  thing  in  the  Chaucerian  version — 
*  For,  as  me  thought,  among  her  notes  swete 
She  said  Si  douse  est  la  Margarete. ' 

And  Arnold  has  noticed  the  romantic  note  in  Gray's  letters  :  '  At 
Keswick,  by  the  lakeside  on  an  autumn  evening,  he  has  the  accent 


36  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Gray  is  entirely  of  the  eighteenth  century,  its  best 
product  in  poetry,  a  perfect  example  of  the  utmost 
poetical  greatness  to  which  an  unpoetical  age,  remain- 
ing wholly  true  to  itself,  can  by  possibility  attain.  He 
does  not  suffer  from  its  formal  vices.  An  exponent  of 
the  heroical  style,  he  uses  this  style  on  heroical  subjects 
alone.  He  writes  little  to  match  the  dull  pomposity  of 
the  Alliance  of  Education  and  Government ',  a  poem  dear 
to  Gibbon  and  examiners.  His  lyrical  excellence  is  as 
great  as  was  possible  for  one  who  had  no  note  of  spon- 
taneous song.  As  his  subjects  increase  in  gravity  his 
tone  becomes  more  measured,  more  natural. 

These  are  great  merits  ;  he  has,  in  fact,  every  merit 
attainable  by  his  century,  and  he  lacks  those  qualities 
alone  that  are  truly  poetical.  He  lacks  spontaneity, 
swiftness,  and  the  immediate  transference  of  his  feeling 
to  paper.  He  is  too  slow,  too  polished,  too  reflective. 
But  his  work  is  immensely  good  ;  the  tone  of  his  mind 
is  serious  and  human,  and  had  he  been  characteristically 
a  poet  he  would  have  been  a  poet  of  a  great  order. 


of  the  Reveries,  or  of  Obermann,  or  Wordsworth ' : — *  In  the  evening 
walked  alone  down  to  the  lake  by  the  side  of  Crow  Park  after  sunset 
and  saw  the  solemn  colouring  of  light  draw  on,  the  last  gleam  of  sun- 
shine fading  away  on  the  hill-tops,  the  deep  serene  of  the  waters,  and 
the  long  shadows  of  the  mountains  thrown  across  them,  till  they 
nearly  touched  the  hithermost  shore.  At  distance  heard  the  murmur 
of  many  waterfalls  not  audible  in  the  daytime.  Wished  for  the  moon, 
but  she  was  "  dark  to  me  and  silent,  hid  in  her  vacant  interlunar 
cave."' 

Mr.  Hudson  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Literature  has  this 
statement :  '  The  publication  of  some  fifty  poems,  small  and  large,  in 
the  Spenserian  form,  and  often  on  subjects  for  which  that  form  was 
not  in  the  least  appropriate,  in  the  half-century  between  1725  and  1775, 
is  itself  a  sign  of  awakening  interest  during  those  years  in  Spenser 
and  his  work,'  p.  161. 


GRAY  37 

Indeed,  I  believe  if  one  were  to  ask  oneself  what  is 
poetry,  one  could  not  do  better  than  look  at  his  poems 
side  by  side  with  those  of  Burns.  All  that  Burns  writes 
is  not  poetry — by  no  means— and  all  that  Gray  writes 
is  not  prose.  I  do  not  say  so  ;  but  the  one,  with  all  his 
faults,  sees  the  world  from  the  standpoint  of  the  poet ; 
the  other,  with  all  his  merits,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  his  century,  the  sober,  intensely  English  eighteenth 
century,  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  writer  of  prose. 

I  open  the  little  book  at  its  first  page,  at  the  lines  on 
the  Spring,  and  I  pass  by  the  conventional  opening — 

'the  rosy  bosom'd  Hours, 
Fair  Venus'  train,' 

with  its  unreal  mythology  and  the  muse  that  sits  and 
thinks— what  she  never  does  do,  she  leaps  and  springs — 
and  I  also  pass  by  the  jerky  disconnection  of  the  osten- 
sibly connected  reflection,  till  I  find  Gray's  mind 
occupied  with  the  thought,  the  theme  of  every  poet,  as 
of  every  prose-writer  since  the  world  began — the  thought 
of  the  equality  of  Death  : — 

'  Alike  the  Busy  and  the  Gay 
But  flutter  through  life's  little  day, 
In  Fortune's  varying  colours  dress'd  : 
Brush'd  by  the  hand  of  rough  Mischance, 
Or  chill'd  by  Age,  their  airy  dance 
They  leave,  in  dust  to  rest.' 

Yes,  it  is  true.  But  hear  Shakespeare  on  the  same 
subject : — 

'  Golden  lads  and  girls  all  must, 
As  chimney-sweepers,  come  to  dust.' 

It  is  the  contrast  between  a  trite  reflection,  a  general 
comment  on  the  course  of  human  life,  as  just  as  it  is 
common,  and  an  old  feeling  newly  felt. 


38  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

In  the  one  case  the  poet  feels  a  surprising  instance 
with  a  surprising  newness,  leaps  to  his  general  truth, 
and  makes  us  feel  it  by  the  ardour  with  which  he  seizes 
on  the  particular.  In  the  other,  the  prose  nature  takes 
his  time  and  sweeps  his  eyes  around. 

An  old  man  has  weak  hams  and  sleeps  lightly. 
That  is  true.  To  the  old  man,  says  the  Eastern  poet, 
his  fancy  seizing  on  their  persistent  morning  chirrup- 
ing, the  grasshopper  is  a  burden.  How  much  more, 
and  how  much  more  incisively  true  ! 

This  it  is  to  feel  as  a  poet.  But  Gray  does  not 
commonly  feel  as  a  poet.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  does 
not  feel ;  he  feels,  and  with  a  justice  and  at  times  a 
depth  of  sentiment  so  great  that  he  is  immortal.  The 
immortal  commentator  upon  the  passing  show,  Gray 
has  passed  more  pithy  and  more  just  reflections  upon 
our  leasehold  tenure  here  than  any  other  Englishman. 
Of  such  reflections  the  '  Ode  on  Eton  College '  is  full. 
Everyone  knows  the  finest  lines  in  that  poem  : — 

*  All  are  men, 

Condemn'd  alike  to  groan  ; 
The  tender  for  another's  pain, 
The  unfeeling  for  his  own.' 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  the  saddest  of  human  truths 
expressed  more  beautifully  or  with  a  more  perfect 
melancholy.  It  is  finer,  far  finer,  than  the  poetical 
flashes  in  the  piece  : — 

'  They  hear  a  voice  in  every  wind, 
And  snatch  a  fearful  joy,' 


or 


'  Alas  !  regardless  of  their  doom, 
The  little  victims  play.' 


GRAY  39 

It  is  finer  because,  without  the  poetical  brilliance  of 
these,  the  lightning  flash,  it  is  staider,  more  in  tone 
with  the  subject,  more  said  for  ever,  more  excellent. 
Yes,  but  it  is  a  prose  excellence.  That  a  prose  excel- 
lence was  wanted  here  should  not  disguise  this  from  us. 
The  *  Ode  on  Eton  College '  is  a  perfect  prose  triumph 
—popular  just  for  that,  since  the  public  has  difficulty 
in  understanding  poetry, — a  prose  triumph  with  its 
careful  enumeration  of  the  woes  of  age,  with  its  perfect 
enumeration  of  the  unnoticed  delights  of  youth  : — 

*  The  thoughtless  day,  the  easy  night.' 

How  does  it  happen  with  Gray  where  he  essays  a 
flight  more  distinctively  poetical  ?  He  has  written  many 
Odes.  They  have  been  [greatly  admired,  and  many 
have  facilely  tried  to  imitate  their  laboured  excellence. 
The  imitators  have  failed.  They  did  not  realise  that, 
however  lacking  these  Odes  might  be  in  a  strictly 
poetical  excellence,  they  are  the  production  of  a  man 
who  had  observed  life  carefully  and  who  never  wrote  a 
line  that  was  not  pregnant  with  the  meaning  of  a  real 
experience.  For  ourselves,  if  we  were  to  speak  openly 
and  not  as  children  of  yesterday,  we  would  confess  at 
once  that  these  Odes,  with  all  their  admirable  merits, 
leave  us  cold.  We  can  admire  the  justice  of  the  senti- 
ments, without  feeling  that  inner  warmth  of  feeling 
that  communicates  its  warmth.  Some  old  things  may 
be  said  in  such  a  way  that  we  seem  to  feel  them  for  the 
first  time  : — 

'  No  motion  has  she  now,  no  force  ; 

She  neither  hears  nor  sees  ; 
Rolled  round  in  earth's  diurnal  course, 
With  rocks,  and  stones,  and  trees.' 


40  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

A  woman  in  an  old  Scots  ballad  addresses  the  ghost 
of  her  murdered  lover  whose  wraith  she  is  painfully 
following : — 

'  Sae  painfully  she  clam  the  wa', 
She  clam  the  wa'  up  after  him  ; 
Hosen  nor  shoon  upon  her  feet, 
She  hadna  time  to  put  them  on. 

"  Is  there  ony  room  at  your  head,  Saunders? 
Is  there  ony  room  at  your  feet? 
Or  ony  room  at  your  side,  Saunders, 
Where  fain,  fain,  I  wad  sleep  ? " ' 

These  old  things  may  be  said  in  some  such  way,  and 
new  things  may  be  said  without  making  new  men  of 
us.  I  do  not  know  that  Gray  says  many  new  things  in 
his  Odes,  but  the  old  things  do  not  move. 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  sentiments  more  just  than 
those  with  which  the  *  Ode  to  Adversity '  is  crowded. 
But  it  is  precisely  this,  their  exact  justice,  that  keeps 
the  Ode  within  the  domain  of  prose.  What  should  I 
ask  from  Adversity  ? — 

'  Teach  me  to  love,  and  to  forgive, 
Exact  my  own  defects  to  scan.' 

One  should  do  so,  but  it  is  too  near  a  perfect 
propriety.  There  is  here  neither  the  cry  of  the 
'  limed  soul '  that  struggles  to  be  free,  nor  the  ecstasy 
of  virtue  : — 

'  To  humbler  functions,  awful  Power.' 

To  Wordsworth  duty  is  awful,  awful  because  he  is  a 
poet  and  feels  the  frailty  of  man. 

We  may  pass  a  similar  criticism  upon  the  more 
ambitious  efforts,  *  The  Progress  of  Poesy '  and  '  The 
Bard ' ;  nor  must  the  studiedly  poetical  language 


GRAY  41 

conceal  from  us  that  those  pieces  also  are  the  work  of 
one  who  was  pre-eminently  a  critic,  the  justest  and 
most  discriminating  of  critics,  but  at  bottom  a  critic 
still.  Take  a  passage  that  looks  like  poetry  : — 

'  O'er  Idalia's  velvet  green 
The  rosy-crowned  Loves  are  seen 
On  Cytherea's  day 

With  antic  Sport,  and  blue-eyed  Pleasures, 
Frisking  light  in  frolic  measures  ; 
Now  pursuing,  now  retreating, 
Now  in  circling  troops  they  meet : 
To  brisk  notes  in  cadence  beating, 
Glance  their  many-twinkling  feet.' 

No  criticism  of  the  dance,  no  sympathetic  exposition  of 
the  charm  of  quick  and  intertwining  motion  could  be 
better.  What  a  genius  is  necessary  so  to  represent ! 
The  dance  with  its  changing  measure  is  seen  ;  the 
accompanying  music  with  its  change  of  time  is 
actually  heard.  But  the  poetry  of  motion  !  We  have 
only  to  remember  :— 

*  When  you  do  dance,  I  wish  you 
A  wave  o'  the  sea,  that  you  might  ever  do 
Nothing  but  that  ;  move  still,  still  so, 
And  own  no  other  function.' 

It  is  interpretation  as  opposed  to  presentment,  a  thing 
felt  as  against  a  thing  seen,  the  rhythmic  motion  get- 
ting itself  expressed  in  the  undesigned  arrangement  of 
four  words : — 

*  Move  still,  still  so.' 

Shakespeare  does  not  always  write  poetry  ;  but  where- 
•ever  he  is  pre-eminently  good,  he  makes  his  effect  by 
a  reliance  on  the  poetical  method.  He  is  thus  pre- 
eminently a  poet.  Gray  does  not  always  write  prose  ; 


42  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

but  wherever  he  is  pre-eminently  good  we  find,  with 
few  exceptions,  that  his  method  is  the  method  of  prose. 
His  genius  is  thus  pre-eminently  a  prose  genius. 

But  how  admirable  are  the  efforts  of  this  genius  ; 
how  penetrating  is  the  criticism,  how  '  exact  to  scan  '  ! 

Shakespeare  was  what?  *  Nature's  Darling,'  'im- 
mortal Boy,'  an  unstudied  genius  full  to  the  last  of 
the  juicy  sallies  of  youth  ;  and  Milton  that  '  rode 
sublime,' the  exact  adjective,  '  upon  the  seraph  wings 
of  Ecstacy ' ;  and  Dryden,  and  Pindar — 

'  Sailing  with  supreme  dominion 
Through  the  azure  deep  of  air.' 

1  The  Bard'  and  the  'Ode  for  Music'  are  poems  not 
to  be  admired  so  greatly.  They  are  too  like  poetry  ;; 
without  being  poetry,  too  like  it.  The  effort,  the 
laboured  effort,  to  simulate  the  fine  frenzy  is  dis- 
concerting. We  miss  our  familiar  Gray. 

He  is  there,  of  course,  just  as  good  a  critic  as  ever, 
and  never  a  vulgar  critic.  When  the  gross  vulgar,, 
for  example,  think  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  they  think 
of  a  fat  man  with  six  beheaded  wives.  Yet  some 
memory  of  Mr.  Froude  may  intervene,  and  of  what 
Carlyle  said  to  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  who,  de- 
murring to  Carlyle's  statement  that  Henry  knew  what 
he  wanted,  'suggested  that,  among  the  things  he 
wanted  and  knew  how  to  get,  was  as  long  a  roll  of 
wives  as  the  Grand  Turk.  It  would  have  been  a 
more  humane  method  to  have  taken  them,  like  that 
potentate,  simultaneously  than  successively  ;  he  would 
have  been  saved  the  need  of  killing  one  to  make  room 
for  another,  and  then  requiring  Parliament  to  disgrace 
itself  by  sanctioning  the  transaction. 

'  Carlyle  replied  that  this  method  of  looking  at  King 


GRAY  43 

Henry's  life  did  not  help  much  to  the  understanding 
of  it.  -He  was  a  true  ruler  at  a  time  when  the  will  of 
the  Lord's  anointed  counted  for  something,  and  it 
was  likely  that  he  did  not  regard  himself  as  doing 
wrong  in  any  of  these  things  over  which  modern 
sentimentality  grew  so  impatient.'  And  so  Gray  : — 

'the  majestic  lord, 
That  broke  the  bonds  of  Rome.' 

And  again  of  the  Tower,  which  we  are  apt  to  think 
of  with  a  curious  national  pride  : — 

4  Ye  towers  of  Julius,  London's  lasting  shame, 
With  many  a  foul  and  midnight  murder  fed.' 

But  in  the  main,   *  The   Bard '  is  a  poem  in  which 
the  critical  side  of  Gray  is  not  prominently  seen.     He 
establishes  a  reputation  as  an  historical  scene-painter, 
and  the  whole  procession  of  English  history  from  the 
Edwards  passes  in  learned,  if  laboured,  review  : — 
'The  shrieks  of  death,  through  Berkley's  roof  that  ring.' 
*  Low  on  his  funeral  couch  he  lies  ! ' 

'  Her  lion-port, 
Her  awe-commanding  face.' 

But  somehow  I  cannot  think  that  the  old  prophet  about 
to  plunge  in  the  roaring  tide  would  have  been  so 
particular.  '  The  Bard '  is  an  attempt  to  give  to  an 
historical  account  the  hurry  and  rapture  of  poetry  ;  and 
this  attempt  succeeds.  '  The  Bard '  is  a  hurried, 
rapturous,  and  precise  performance.  It  has  some  of 
the  characteristics  of  poetry  without  being  poetry.  It 
has  the  particularity  of  prose  without  the  leisure  to  be 
prose.  It  is  executed  as  a  poet  would  execute  it,  but  it 
is  not  conceived  as  a  poet  would  conceive  it.  It  is 
an  attempt  to  make  poetry  by  adding  the  adjuncts 
of  a  poem  to  a  distinctively  eighteenth-century  task. 


44  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Classification,    criticism,    history,    are    to    be    flogged 
into  a  canter. 

The  Elegy  is  a  performance  of  a  different  kind. 
The  poetry  that  is  in  it  is  not  an  adjunct  to  it,  but 
arises  out  of  it,  the  inner  depth  of  the  feeling  warming 
to  a  slow  fire.  Far  and  away  the  greatest  thing 
Gray  did,  it  is  the  most  difficult  of  which  to  speak  ; 
for  while  it  is  a  product  of  prose,  a  creature  of  the 
prose  imagination,  and  while  there  are  only  a  few 
lines  that,  detached  from  the  context,  are  strictly 
speaking  poetry,  the  effect  of  the  whole  is  not  a  prose 
effect  but  a  poetical  effect.  When  we  have  read  it 
through  we  feel  as  if  we  had  been  listening  to  poetry. 
The  reason  is  that  the  conception  is  poetical,  eminently 
so,  and  it  is  only  the  execution,  the  carrying  out,  the 
imaginative  development  that  belongs  to  the  domain 
of  prose. 

Death,  the  term  —  for  the  Elegy  stops  with  the 
grave  and  leaves  alone  the  question  of  a  hereafter — 
Death,  the  finis  to  mortal  aspiration  and  delight, 
forms  a  subject  in  contemplating  which  the  prose- 
writer  feels  his  being  stirred  to  a  depth  that  is  poetical. 
On  this  subject,  finis,  the  prose-writer  and  the  poet 
meet,  so  to  speak,  on  common  ground.  There  is  so 
little  to  say,  and  one's  feelings,  even  the  feelings  of 
an  ordinary  man,  are  so  universal  that  the  poetical 
movement  of  the  mind  and  the  prose  movement  base 
on  a  similarity  of  feeling  that  ends  in  an  expression 
not  dissimilar. 

For  this  reason  Gray's  Elegy  has  an  unusually 
wide  appeal.  The  poetical  reader  feels  with  the  poet, 
and  the  prose  nature  is  able  easily  to  follow  the 
beautiful  expatiation. 


GRAY  45 

Let  me  explain  what  I  mean  by  saying  that  the 
conception  of  the  Elegy  is  poetical,  while  its  execution 
is  a  work  of  prose.  Its  execution  is  a  prose  execution 
because  the  simple  subject  is  exhausted.  It  is  not 
suddenly  or  surprisingly  felt.  The  slow  considering 
mind  reflects  upon  a  country  graveyard  till  there  has 
arisen  in  the  mind  every  just  reflection,  and  till  there 
has  been  embodied  in  words  every  just  sentiment 
which  the  occasion  could,  by  possibility,  evoke. 

It  is  evening,  and  the  evening  is  still.  Still,  did  I 
say?  A  beetle  may  be  heard,  and  an  owl.  Around 
one  lie  the  country  graves.  The  poor  inhabitants 
below  will  no  more  rise  to  their  usual  tasks  (these 
tasks  then  being  carefully  enumerated).  These  usual 
tasks  were  homely,  but  this  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  despise  them.  Tasks,  however  grand,  and 
lives,  however  glorious,  come  to  the  same  stop.  It 
is  true  the  great  are  honoured  with  costlier  monuments, 
but  this  does  not  affect  the  fact  of  death.  Besides, 
who  knows?  had  there  been  ampler  opportunity,  these 
humble  dead  might,  alive,  have  done  great  things 
(these  great  things  being  then  carefully  enumerated). 
John  Nokes  and  Richard  Stokes  might  have  been 
Hampden  or  Milton,  a  great  writer  or  a  great  states- 
man. But  even  if  it  is  true,  as  true  it  is,  that  they 
were  not  great  or  greatly  good,  it  is  also  true  that 
they  were  not  greatly  bad  (the  possible  developments 
of  great  badness  being  then  carefully  enumerated). 
They  weren't  greatly  good  or  greatly  bad.  Let  that 
be  allowed,  and  it  remains  they  were  men,  unnoticed 
men,  whose  deaths  were  regretted  as  greater  deaths 
have  been.  It  is  a  sad  thing  for  any  one  to  die, 
to  leave  pleasant  life  and  to  bid  farewell  to  friends. 


46  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Indeed,  if  one  were  to  inquire  of  me  who  write  this 
what  could  be  said  of  me,  my  epitaph  would  not  really 
amount  to  much  more  than  theirs.  Some  one,  no 
doubt,  would  say  he  saw  the  harmless  poet  walking 
forth  at  dawn,  and  lying  under  the  great  beech,  now 
happy,  now  sad — one  morning  missing.  There  was 
afterwards,  indeed,  a  rustic  funeral  and  a  few  lines 
on  a  tomb,  which  said  :  A  man  of  compassionate  and 
friendly  heart  lies  here.  He  had  his  frailties,  but  now 
let  there  be  silence,  for  all  that  he  has  is  a  narrow 
bed,  with  hope  for  a  companion  did  you  say?  Yes, 
with  trembling  hope. 

I  say  this  execution  is  a  prose  execution  because  it 
is  a  prose  execution  ;  it  is  mapped  out  and  proceeds 
from  point  to  point  like  a  little  school-essay  of  which 
the  analysis  has  been  written  before  hand.  It  is  a 
prose  execution  because  it  is  not  a  poetical  execution  ; 
there  are  none  of  the  sudden  starts,  sallies,  surprises 
of  poetry.  Heine  has  been  looking  at  a  tomb. 
This  is  the  fate  that  overtakes  all ;  it  is  common, 
but  then — 

'  Quite  suddenly  it  came  into  my  head 
The  dead  man  in  the  marble  tomb  was  I.' 

It  has  none  of  these  sallies,  and,  moreover,  it  is 
never  beaten  by  the  depth  of  its  own  feeling,  nor 
comes  to  a  stop,  like  Shakespeare's  terrifying  'signi- 
fying nothing/  But  while  this  is  so,  the  conception 
is  poetical.  The  subject  is  not  suddenly  or  surprisingly 
felt,  but  it  is  singly  felt,  felt  as  a  whole.  It  was  a 
poet's  thought  to  be  so  deeply  moved  by  what  is 
common,  to  feel  so  profoundly  just  one  truth.  We 
are  mortal,  alike  in  this,  in  our  mortality ;  and  to 
keep  saying  this — in  different  ways,  it  is  true,  but 


GRAY  47 

still  saying  it  and  nothing  else — is  a  great  thing.  To 
trust  to  the  effect  of  one  profoundly  felt  feeling,  this  is 
the  true  faith  of  the  poet  ;  to  be  contented  with  the 
emanation  of  a  sigh,1  not  to  press  eagerly  or  to  attempt 
to  startle,  but  merely  to  let  one's  feeling  flow — one's 
feeling,  whether  it  is  a  surprising  or  a  merely  deep 
feeling,  this  is  the  true  attitude  of  the  poet.  Some- 
times I  think  this  Elegy  is  the  greatest,  the  most 
universal  thing  in  the  world  ;  it  so  perfectly  expresses 
the  feelings  of  man  as  man,  of  an  erect,  peripatetic  biped 
one  day  to  lie  quiet  and  at  full  length. 

It  is  also,  I  know,  the  boast  of  a  purely  poetical 
poetry  that  it  is  universal,  but  in  speaking  of  the  greatest 
poetry  we  may  easily  give  too  wide  a  meaning  to  this 
term.  Its  claim  to  universality  can  be  justified  only  in 
so  far  as  all  great  poetry  despises  everything  adventi- 
tious, and  speaks  of  human  nature  as  human  nature. 
What  we  really  mean  when  we  say  that  great  poetry  is 
universal,  is  that  her  interests  are  not  limited  in  width  ; 
that  she  speaks  ofatt,  of  what  lies  at  the  roots  of  things  ; 
that  she  can  be  understood  equally  well  by  a  German 
or  a  Chinaman,  by  man  or  woman  : — 

'  By  saint,  by  savage,  and  by  sage, 
In  every  clime,  adored.' 

What,  however,  we  do  not  mean  when  we  claim 
universality  for  great  poetry  is  that  she  speaks  for  all, 
or  voices  the  sentiments  equally  of  the  imaginative  and 


1  Why  should  the  emanation  of  a  sigh  give  comfort  ?  The  Elegy  is 
a  poem  that  does  not  speak  of  hope,  and  yet  it  brings  comfort  to 
every  mind.  If  we  ask  why  it  should  do  so  perhaps  the  best  answer 
is  Shelley's 

'  Thus  solemnised  and  softened,  death  is  mild.' 

Stanzas  in  Lechlade  Churchyard,  1815. 


48  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

the  unimaginative,  the  sensitive  and  the  vulgar.  We  da 
not  mean  that  her  office  is  simply  to  give  utterance  to  feel- 
ings on  the  tip  of  every  tongue.  On  the  contrary,  poetry  is 
an  aristocrat,  though  an  aristocrat  full  of  understanding. 
At  her  highest,  she  speaks  of  depths  the  common  man 
hasnever  sounded,  of  stillnesses  known  only  to  the  patient 
and  reflective.  Poetry,  let  us  say,  speaks  of  everything, 
but  not  as  every  one  thinks  about  it.  The  highest  and 
purest  poetry  is  thus  not  able  to  boast  truly  of  complete 
universality  ;  it  is  at  best  an  interpretative  universality 
to  which  she  can  reach.  We  shall  never  be  able,  let 
us  be  sure  of  this,  solely  to  express  an  absolutely 
universal  feeling,  to  give  shape  to  a  merely  human 
sigh,  unless  we  keep  firm  hold  of  the  prose  side  of  our 
nature.  When  Shakespeare,  for  instance,  writes 

'  And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 
The  way  to  dusty  death,' 

this  is,  we  see  after  thinking  about  it,  a  ray  of  light 
shed  on  the  procrastinating  habit  of  the  mind  ;  yet 
most  clearly  it  is  not  what  every  one  thinks  or  is  yearn- 
ing to  say.  In  the  splendid  indignation  of  '  fools '  we 
hear  Shakespeare's  own  voice,  the  particular  bubbling 
over  of  Shakespeare's  own  wrath  at  an  unvarying 
human  habit.  Ordinary  men  do  not  feel  like  that,  do 
not  think  like  that,  and  to  speak  in  that  way  is  not  to 
voice  their  feeling. 

In  a  word,  a  purely  poetical  age  will  never  merely 
voice  the  sorrows  of  mankind  ;  it  could  never  have 
produced  and  will  never  produce  so  direct  an  expression 
of  universal  grief  as  this  prose  eighteenth  century,  as 
this  tender,  melancholy  poet  Gray,  with  the  critic  and 
the  slow  prose  man  so  much  alive  in  him. 

A  purely   poetical   age  could   not  have  produced  a 


GRAY  49 

poem  so  much  on  a  level,  so  perfectly  in  one  note,  so 
exquisitely  in  tone. 

And  how  exquisite  is  the  tact  of  Gray  !  In  the  poem 
as  it  was  written,  at  the  end  there  were  two  stanzas, 
one  about  the  poet : — 

'  Him  have  we  seen  the  greenwood  side  along, 

While  o'er  the  heath  we  hied,  our  labour  done, 
Oft  as  the  woodlark  piped  her  farewell  song, 
With  wistful  eyes  pursue  the  setting  sun.' 

It  was  pretty,  but  it  had  a  particularity  of  its  own  ;  it 
was  the  kind  of  thing  to  be  said  about  a  poetical  poet, 
not  of  the  poet  standing  merely  for  man  poetically 
moved.  Moreover,  its  particularity  detracted  from  the 
plain  simplicity  with  which  the  figure  is  introduced. 
Gray's  tact  condemned  it.  The  other  is  a  more  obvious 
lapse.  It  was  to  be  inserted  just  before  the  epitaph  : — 

'  There  scatter'd  oft,  the  earliest  of  the  year, 

By  hands  unseen  are  showers  of  violets  found  ; 
The  redbreast  loves  to  build  and  warble  there, 
And  little  footsteps  lightly  print  the  ground.' 

One  must  not  blame  a  poet  for  what  he  has  deleted  ; 
but  what  are  we  to  think  of  the  poetical  standard  of  an 
age  the  chief  glory  of  which,  writing  the  elegy  on 
man,  stops  to  paint  this  lovely  little  Christmas  card? 

There  is  another  and  more  important  omission. 
There  was  an  early  stanza  now  commonly  printed 
by  editors  without  the  tact  of  the  poet  as  the  fourth  : — 

'  Hark  !  how  the  sacred  calm  that  breathes  around, 

Bids  every  fierce  tumultuous  passion  cease  ; 
In  still  small  accents  whispering  from  the  ground, 
A  grateful  earnest  of  eternal  peace.' 

No  ;  this  had  to  go — for  the  poem  was  about  Finis. 
The  poem  was  about  Finis,  and  it  is  because  of  this  it 

D 


50  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

speaks  for  every  man.  It  voices  with  perfect  propriety, 
and  without  the  intrusion  of  a  single  individual  thought, 
the  one  deeply  felt  feeling  that  every  man  has  in  con- 
templating a  graveyard. 

I  do  not  say  that  there  is  any  man  who  has  not  at 
times  other  feelings.  Who  is  there  so  presumptuous 
as  to  say  he  knows  that  behind  the  curtain  there  is 
nothing  ?  Who  is  there,  by  his  own  hypothesis 
ephemeral,  who  is  prepared  to  say  he  knows  that  to 
no  issue  there  is  lived  our  perplexing  life?  Indeed,  I 
think  that  most  men  in  their  common  thoughts  assume 
themselves  immortal  and  look  beyond  the  grave.  One 
is  alive  and  one  remembers  life,  those  who  made  it 
what  it  was,  and  those  bright  eyes,  not  to  shine  forever, 
that  cheer  it  now  ;  and  one's  mounting  spirit  moves. 
One  sees  beyond  as  in  a  vision,  and  death,  no  longer 
dulling  the  horizon,  slips  down  beneath  one's  feet. 

But  in  the  quiet  of  a  churchyard,  coming  suddenly 
on  it  from  the  city's  hum,  in  Greyfriars  on  an  August 
day,  or  by  a  playing-ground  in  Chelsea,  somewhere 
nestling  near  a  lowland  hill — the  contrast  between  my 
own  present  life  and  those  slabs,  or  rolls  of  turf — it  is 
this  that  immediately  affects  me.  Life  is  a  going  on,  a 
tumult,  an  upstanding  ;  and  here  is  something  beneath 
one,  lying  prone,  surrounded  by  an  oppressive  quiet, 
and  willy-nilly  brought  to  rest.  Gay  lovers,  and 
young  maidens,  and  old  chilly  men  who  asked  for 
another  year.  I  think  so  and  I  am  sorry  for  them  :— 

'  For  who,  to  dumb  forgetfulness  a  prey, 

This  pleasing  anxious  being  e'er  resign'd, 
Left  the  warm  precincts  of  the  cheerful  day, 
Nor  cast  one  longing  lingering  look  behind  ?' 

You  feel  it  quivering  into  poetry,  the  beautiful  equable 


GRAY  51 

reflection  stirring  by  its  own  intensity  towards  the 
highest  speech  of  man,  that  form  of  speech  which  affects 
us  like  the  light  ;  and  you  know,  as  you  hear,  that 
there  are  greater  and  more  illuminating  flights  of  the 
human  spirit  than  prose  can  find  words  for — strange 
trembling  outbursts  of  the  panting  soul  about  whose 
dread  passage  into  silence  this  Elegy  was  written  and 
to  unnumbered  ages  will  speak. 


52  POETRY  AND  PROSE 


BURNS 

THE  eighteenth-century  movement  in  Poetry  destroyed 
itself,  and  had  the  course  of  political  history  continued 
undisturbed,  Pope's  verses  would  still  have  been 
replaced  by  Scott's.  The  genius  of  literature  never 
commits  suicide,  and  the  knot  into  which  Poetry  had 
tied  herself  would  have  been  untied  by  causes  purely 
literary.  The  instrument  the  eighteenth  century  had 
fashioned — an  instrument  which,  like  a  club  in  a  fable, 
grew  in  its  hands — proved  ultimately  too  unwieldy  for 
use.  To  write  on  selected  subjects  in  a  selected  style 
was  not  permanently  possible.  The  road  ended  in 
a  cul-de-sac  :  it  was  necessary  to  try  again,  and  to  hark 
back  to  another  opening.  We  can  see  the  tangle 
untwining  itself  in  some  of  the  poetry  of  Cowper,  in 
some  of  the  poetry  of  Burns,  in  some  of  the  poetry  of 
Scott. 

Cowper,  at  his  best  a  poet  of  a  singular  simplicity,  no 
doubt  often  chooses  subjects,  such  as  the  public-school 
system,1  that  have  rather  a  social  and  educational  than 
a  poetical  interest,  but  his  place  in  literary  history  is 
due  to  his  many  efforts  to  free  himself  from  the 
bondage  of  the  eighteenth-century  subject.  His  sub- 
jects often  have  a  merely  natural,  playful,  or  pathetic 
appeal,  and  this  humanising  of  the  subject  is  the  more 


1   Tirocinium. 


BURNS  53 

notable  as  it  is  by  no  means  always  accompanied  with 
an  equal  freedom  from  the  eighteenth-century  manner.1 
Cowper  often  cuts  himself  free  from  the  eighteenth- 
century  subject,  less  often  from  the  eighteenth-century 
style. 

Burns  also,  essentially  romantic  though  his  true 
genius  is,  betrays  traces  of  the  tradition.  He  is  less 
in  bondage  to  the  eighteenth-century  style,  yet  in  his 
younger  days  is  quite  as  frequently  a  prey  to  the 
eighteenth-century  subject.  A  whole  department  of 
his  poetry  depends  for  its  interest  upon  political, 
moral,  or  social  considerations.  Burns  cut  himself 
largely  free  from  the  eighteenth-century  style,  without 
freeing  himself  at  all  in  the  same  degree  from  the 
eighteenth-century  subject. 

If  we  wish  to  see  the  purely  literary  emancipation 
complete — an  emancipation,  I  mean,  to  which  nothing 
but  literary  causes  had  contributed — we  must  turn  to 
some  of  the  poetry  of  Scott.  The  introductions  to  the 
several  cantos  of  Marmion  present  us  with  a  poet, 
though  with  no  political  impetus  behind  him,  dealing 
with  natural  subjects  without  the  aid  of  artifice. 

Such  was  the  course  of  poetry.  Literary  causes 
working  alone  produced  this  result — would  in  fact,  had 
they  been  left  to  work  alone,  have  produced  just  this 
result  over  the  whole  field  of  activity.  Without  the 
Revolutionary  ideas,  Glover  and  Erasmus  Darwin 
would  have  died,  and  introductions  to  Marmion  and 


1  See  the  famous  '  Rose,'  where  the  eighteenth-century  style  is  so 
marked  we  almost  fail  to  observe  that  the  subject  is  both  slightly 
pathetic  and  exceedingly  delicate,  e.g.  : 

'  And  the  tear  that  is  wiped  with  a  little  address 
May  be  follow'd  perhaps  by  a  smile.' 


54  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

The  Lay  sprouted  abundantly  ;  but  without  the  Revolu- 
tionary ideas  we  should  not  have  had  Blake,  Words- 
worth, Shelley,  Byron,  the  love  poetry  of  Burns,  or 
Scott's  chivalric  protest.1  To  the  French  Revolution 
we  do  not  owe  everything  in  modern  poetry,  but  we  do 
owe  its  impetus,  all  that  is  in  it  of  new  fire.  Without 
the  French  Revolution  the  eighteenth-century  move- 
ment in  poetry  would  have  died  ;  without  the  French 
Revolution  the  nineteenth-century  movement  would  not 
have  lived. 

The  Revolutionary  period  and  the  Elizabethan 
period  were  alike  in  this,  that  they  were  both  times  of 
beginnings  ;  times  in  which  the  world  in  which  man 
dwells — the  world  of  thought  and  idea — was  recreated 
for  him.  In  the  Elizabethan  period  his  whole  world 
was  made  anew.  The  coming  of  the  Revolutionary 
ideas  involved  a  complete  reversal  of  his  attitude  to 
society. 

Of  Christian  Europe's  former  ideas  on  this  subject 
the  feudal  system  is  the  type.  That  system,  which  may 
be  represented  diagrammatically  by  a  pendent  chain, 
was  dominated  by  the  idea  of  service,  of  something 
owed.  It  was  only  at  the  top  of  the  chain  that  you 
thought,  if  you  thought  at  all,  of  any  one  as  having  a 
right  to  anything.  Each  unit  owed  a  duty  to  the  whole 
of  which  he  formed  a  component  part,  a  duty  variously 
determined  by  his  particular  place  therein.  Such  a 
society  was  based  equally  on  the  notions  of  inequality 


1  Scott's  revival  of  chivalric  interest,  due  chiefly,  no  doubt,  to  his 
familiarity  with  the  old  Border  literature,  owed  much  of  its 
enthusiasm  to  his  dislike  of  the  new  Liberal  ideas.  Mr.  Hudson 
quotes  Renan  appropriately,  'one  belongs  to  one's  century  even 
when  one  reacts  against  one's  century.' 


BURNS  55 

and  of  duty.  No  man  was  seen  as  an  entity,  but  only 
as  a  part  of  the  larger  entity — the  rest.  The  idea 
underlying  the  feudal  system  was  pre-eminently  social  ; 
and  this  idea,  long  surviving  its  concrete  expression  in 
feudal  tenures  and  feudal  status,  this  conception  of  men 
as  forming  a  society,  a  chain,  a  pyramid,  a  homo- 
geneous ordered  mass,  this  idea  of  looking  at  men  as 
an  aggregate,  continued  till  1789. 

Let  us  place  against  this  conception  of  society  the 
watchwords  of  the  Revolution — Liberty,  Equality,  and 
Fraternity.  These  words  have  come  to  mean  almost 
everything,  to  express  in  a  vague  way  the  multi- 
tudinous and  even  contradictory l  ideals  of  modern 
democracy,  yet  in  the  genesis  of  Revolutionary  idea  the 
first  word  it  is  that  counts.  One  begins  on  the  top 
note.  That  first  word,  Liberty,  was  to  be  understood 
in  an  absolute  sense.  It  is  not  enough  to  understand 
that  it  stood  for  freedom  from  control,  individualism  ; 
it  meant  definitely  the  right  of  each  man  to  live  his  life 
in  his  own  way — for  himself,  with  a  view  to  his  own 
development,  without  a  view  to  anybody  else's.  His 
right  to  do  so,  do  I  say  ?  no,  his  duty  to  do  so.  Each 
man  has  a  right,  even  a  duty  to  himself.  The  ideal  is 
the  individual.  One  is  no  longer  to  look  on  men  as  an 
aggregate,  but  as  a  mass  of  units. 

The  second  word,  Equality,  if  we  are  to  understand 
the  motive  force  of  the  Revolution,  was  essentially  little 
more  than  a  repetition.  The  individual  was  the  ideal, 
and  each  was  to  have  an  equal  right  to  live  his  own  life, 


1  If  equality  is  to  be  understood  in  a  wide  general  sense,  equality 
of  joy  or  opportunity,  it  can  be  preserved  only  by  derogation  from 
the  ideal  of  liberty.  Where  liberty  is  absolute,  there  must  be 
freedom  of  competition  from  which  inequality  will  result. 


56  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

an  equal  right  to  freedom.  There  was  to  be  an 
equality  of  liberty.  Liberty  and  Equality  means 
liberty  for  all.1  Each  man  was  to  be  equal  before 
the  law,  and  what  was  of  even  more  far-reaching  effect, 
to  be  equally  free  from  the  interference  of  law  in 
matters  which  concerned  him  only. 

The  third  word  carries  its  own  meaning,  but  it  has 
also  a  chorus  meaning.  All  men  equally  free  to 
develop  themselves  as  men,  all  individuals  equally  free 
from  other  individuals,  were  to  have  no  longer  any 
motive  for  disliking  each  other.  Men  were  to  feel 
themselves  members  of  one  vast  family,  brothers  in 
freedom. 

The  truth  of  this  statement  is  not  affected  by  the 
loose,  extended  meaning  Equality  and  Fraternity  came 
to  bear,  nor  even  by  the  fact  that  this  loose,  extended 
meaning  was  in  degree  always  inherent  in  them. 
Equality  soon  came  to  mean  not  only  that  men  were 
equal  before  the  law,  but  that  they  were  actually  equal, 
of  equal  value  ;  not  only  that  they  had  equal  rights, 
but  that  they  had  a  right  to  equal  opportunities,  equal 
joys.  It  soon  came  to  mean  this  ;  in  the  minds  of  many 
of  the  Revolutionists  it  meant  this  from  the  first  ; 
perhaps  it  has  always  carried  some  of  that  meaning 
even  in  its  sound.  Every  Pharaoh  knows  in  his  heart 
that  men  are  equal  in  more  things,  and  in  things  more 
important,  than  the  things  by  which  they  differ. 


The  Puritan  consciousness  draws  the  same  distinction  : — 

'  If  not  equal  all,  yet  free, 
Equally  free  ;  for  orders  and  degrees 
Jar  not  with  liberty,  but  well  consist.' 

Paradise  Lost,  v.  791. 


BURNS  57 

No  human  being,  and  certainly  no  great  human 
movement,  can  be  ignorant  of  the  equal  sense  of  the 
word  Equality.  Yet  this  was  not  the  basic  idea  of  the 
Revolution.  It  was  not  an  old  human  fact  the  Revolu- 
tion spoke  about,  it  was  a  new  song  it  sang. 

Man,  this  was  the  leading  doctrine,  was  to  justify 
himself  not  by  what  he  did  in  the  aggregate,  and  con- 
sidering himself  as  an  aggregate,  but  by  what  he  did 
as  a  series  of  differences.  Human  life  was  not  to 
be  justified  by  the  mechanism,  however  perfect,  of 
societies,  but  by  the  surprising  and  infinite  varieties, 
however  imperfect,  of  individuals. 

The  expression  of  these  views  is  the  writings  of 
Rousseau ;  indeed,  the  writings  of  Rousseau  are  vital, 
still,  for  their  expression.  To  Rousseau  man  appears 
wonderful,  memorable  as  a  unit.  His  one  discovery, 
his  discovery,  epoch-making  for  the  whole  of  Europe, 
was  the  recognition  of  the  interest,  the  meaning,  of 
any  single  life. 

A  single  human  soul  coming  freshly  into  contact 
with  the  world  and  man,  experiencing  for  itself,  and 
newly,  the  whole  Universe,  its  temporary  home  and 
.surrounding — that  is  the  greatest  thing  in  life.  And 
the  experiences  of  this  soul,  of  the  soul  as  human, 
when  thus  brought  into  contact  with  whatever  is  not  it, 
with  all  that  is  not,  are  in  a  literal  sense  miraculous. 
How  each  new  peasant  born  feels  the  Earth,  the  starry 
night,  the  emotions  of  his  own  heart,  the  wants  of  his 
own  body  ;  this  perpetual  and  new  interpretation  of  the 
same  material,  the  experiences  in  life  of  a  being  ;  this  is 
in  each  case  and  for  itself  a  miracle  as  surprising  as  the 
.sun  and  moon. 

It  is  a  tremendous  thing,  this  full  conception  of  any 


58  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

one  life  and  what  it  means.1  The  whole  Universe  is 
created  anew  for  each  man.  There  is  one  Universe, 
does  one  say  ?  Not  at  all.  There  are  as  many 
Universes  as  human  beings.  I  contain  the  Universe ;  in 
a  sense  I  am  the  Universe.  I  am  my  Universe  for  me. 

Those  views  were  born  with  Rousseau,  and  though 
throughout  his  career  his  constant  effort  is  to  justify 
them  by  argument,  and  even  to  reduce  them  in  some 
sort  to  a  system,  they  were  the  cause,  not  the  result  of 
his  reasoning.  They  were  his  music,  and  pervaded 
his  consciousness.  For  all  that,  this  interior  faith  of 
his  takes  shape,  and  becomes  concrete  as  an  opposition 
doctrine.  It  stands  up,  from  having  something  against 
which  to  lean.  The  Roman  Empire  provided  Christi- 
anity with  its  target,  and  in  France,  when  Rousseau 
wrote,  the  evils  of  the  old  social  system  were  glaringly 
apparent.  What  was  at  fault  ?  Not  the  heart  of  man 
— no  remedial  thinker  could  say  that — not  the  heart  of 
man,  for  to  admit  so  much  was  to  pronounce  the 
problem  insoluble.  It  was  not  then  the  material  for 
society,  but  something  in  the  arrangement  of  society 
that  was  amiss  ! 

But  to  speak  like  this  is  to  say  nothing  ;  even  to 
think  thus  judicially  is  to  think  out  of  the  company  of 
the  makers  of  our  thoughts. 

To  Rousseau  it  was  not  something  in  the  arrange- 
ment that  was  at  fault,  but  the  fact  of  arrangement 
itself.  Society,  the  social  order,  is  to  blame.  If  only 
man  could  be  quit  of  it,  ring  the  knell  of  artifice,  leave 
the  town,  seek  the  country,  and  resume  his  natural 


1  See  Wordsworth's  Leech-Gatherer,  Michael,  the  Soldier  in  the 
Prelude,  and  a  hundred  other  instances  in  his  poems. 


BURNS  59 

independence.  All  our  vices  arise  from  our  being  con- 
stituted in  societies.  By  himself  man  is  innocent,  and 
of  nothing  more  innocent  than  of  original  sin. 

Rousseau  is  much  too  reasonable  in  his  exposition  to 
amuse  his  readers  with  a  dream  of  a  golden  age  to  come, 
but  his  belief  or  half-belief  in  its  once  having  existed 
was,  if  not  an  argumentative  necessity,  at  least  an 
argumentative  advantage.  So  it  was  from  the  begin- 
ning— as  soon  as  a  theorist  can  so  convince  himself, 
he  feels  the  solid  rock.  In  the  beginning,  Rousseau 
suggests,  men  were  units.  In  fact  we  know  now  that 
they  were  not,  and  that  it  was  ages  before  the  tribal 
savage  rose  to  the  conception  of  individual  entity.  Yet 
Rousseau  half-believed  in  his  state  of  nature,  or  did 
not  disbelieve  in  it.  The  main  matter  is,  he  got  other 
people  to  believe  in  it,  got  even  the  most  sensible  people, 
a  hundred  years  before  Sir  Henry  Maine,  to  believe  it 
might  have  been. 

Men  started  as  units,  and  being  units  were  good  and 
happy — that  was  the  golden  age  for  them.  It  was  only 
for  purposes  of  convenience  they  began  to  form  social 
connections.  There  arose  out  of  the  family,  and  from 
a  general  recognition  of  its  utility,  the  tribe,  and  after 
the  tribe  the  state.  Social  order  is  convenient,  even 
beneficial,  to  its  constituents  ;  but  it  must  always  be  re- 
membered that  it  isn't  essential,  it  isn't  original,  it  is  no 
part  of  the  teaching  of  Nature.  What  was  at  first,  and 
therefore  most  natural,  and  therefore  best,  was  Liberty. 

The  aim  of  Rousseau's  politics,  then — in  Dr.  Edward 
Caird's  interpretative  words l— l  the  aim  of  politics  was  to 

1  Essays  on  Literature  and  Philosophy,  1892.  Essays  on  Rousseau 
and  Wordsworth,  a  masterly  synopsis  which  has  guided  all  my 
thinking  on  Rousseau. 


<5o  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

maintain  the  natural  independence  of  man  in  spite  of 
the  social  union.'    But  there  are  difficulties.    In  the  first 
place,  men  deteriorated  by  herding  together  are  lazy 
and   assentive  ;  the  whole  work  is  done  by  the  front 
benches.     One  of  the  chief  anxieties  of  the  general  will 
has  become  the  preservation  of  the  private   will.     If 
society  had  no  other  reason  for  existing,  it  must  exist 
*  to  force  the  individual  to  be  free.'     Another  difficulty 
is  that  a  great  part  of  the  knowledge  man  acquires  in 
societies  is  traditional,  and  this  in  itself  encourages  a 
tendency  to  conformity.     Before  the  child  has  had  time 
to  think  about  the  moon,  he  is  told  what  his  fathers  be- 
lieve :  that  it  is  a  satellite  of  the  earth,  or,  as  sometimes 
happens,   that  it  is  made  of  green  cheese.     In  either 
case  the  child  is  prevented  from  discovering  the  moon 
for  himself,  from  coming  freshly  in  contact  with  any- 
thing.    And  so  just  as  there  must  be  a  comparatively 
elaborate   social   system  to  counteract  the   sequacious 
tendencies  of  the  parents,  so  there  must  be  an  elaborate 
educational  system  to  allow  their  children  to  develop 
naturally,  to  escape  the  fond  parental  net,  and  to  secure, 
each  for  himself,  a  single  existence.     The  process  of 
education,  like  the  process  of  government,  ought  largely 
'to  be  negative.'     In  any  case  tradition  is  unreliable. 
The  Ulemas  of  any  Church  add  decision  to  decision  till 
the  affronted  understanding  is  started  on  the  voyage  of 
unbelief.     Not  that  the  body  of  traditional  Divinity  is 
easily  credible.     Besides  there  are  many  such  bodies, 
and  to  believe  one  is  to  disbelieve  the  rest.     Orthodoxy 
cannot  at  one  and  the  same  time  be  Jewish,  Christian, 
and  Mohammedan.1 


1  Emile^  the  Savoyard 


BURNS  61 

Is  this  to  say  that  just  as  society  cannot  tell  a  child 
what  the  world  is,  because  the  world  is  a  different  thing 
for  each  individual,  so  no  Church  can  tell  any  man  what 
the  Supreme  Power  is,  because  the  Supreme  Power  is 
different  with  each'  man?  No;  this  is  not  Rousseau, 
the  explanation  of  whose  penetrating  influence  is  that 
he  is  tied  to  no  system,  least  of  all  to  a  system  touched 
with  the  scepticism  of  idealism.  He  is  a  revolutionary 
thinker  who  never  thinks  of  himself  as  such.  On  the 
subject  of  religion,  if  we  interrogated  him,  he  would 
tell  us  that  the  heavens  must  be  constant ;  that  here  at 
least  there  must  be  absolute  truth  if  only  we  could  find 
it.  How,  then,  is  it  to  be  found  ?  We  are  to  find  it,  says 
Rousseau,  by  finding  the  interior  sentiment  of  each 
man,  what  all  men  naturally  and  for  themselves  have 
in  common  in  belief ;  and  this  basis,  really  common, 
a  part  of  the  *  common  reason,'  is  a  belief  in  a  Supreme 
Being  and  a  Future  State.  The  savants  assail  him 
with  a  fanfaronnade  of  questions — what  is  meant  by 
these  terms  ;  is  it  impossible  that  the  definitions  may 
be  so  variant  as  to  be  exclusive  ;  have  a  Polynesian 
and  Mr.  Jowett  really  a  common  meeting-ground  ;  is 
this  resulting  substratum  of  belief  a  thing  that  actually 
exists  as  a  belief;  can  it  be  said  that  Arnold  and  a 
priestess  of  Vesta  see  the  Universe  even  for  a  moment 
in  the  same  way?  Rousseau — it  gave  him  his  power — 
would  have  answered  Yes  to  all  these  questions.  We 
may  answer  them  as  we  please.  The  point  is,  Rousseau 
did  believe  that  there  was  an  interior  belief ;  that  this 
interior  belief  was  true,  and  that  you  arrived  at  religious 
truth,  as  at  everything  else,  by  the  testimony  of  units, 
by  an  appeal  to  the  instinct  of  the  individual. 

Is  this  too  logical  an  account  of  Rousseau's  thinking? 


62  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Is  it  not  possible,  in  a  few  pages,  too  logically  to  sum- 
marise the  thoughts  of  an  episodic  and  qualificatory 
thinker,  who  expresses  himself  in  a  romance,  a  treatise 
on  education,  an  autobiography,  and  a  dozen  occasional 
pamphlets?  Unquestionably  ;  but  however  too  general 
as  an  account  of  Rousseau,  it  is  for  that  reason  the 
better  as  an  account  of  Rousseauism,  that  floating 
body  of  startling,  logical,  and  attractive  opinion  which, 
consolidated  by  his  works,  and  detaching  itself  from 
them,  filled  the  air  which  was  breathed  not  only  by 
Western  Europe,  but  by  Burns,  the  young  Words- 
worth, the  young  Coleridge,  and  in  a  later  day  Shelley. 
Genius  moves  at  the  bidding  of  great  impulses  ;  re- 
volutions are  made  by  attitudes,  not  by  the  careful 
reading  of  twenty-seven  volumes,  and  the  balancing  of 
their  contents.  It  is  often  said  that  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau  made  the  French  Revolution,  but  origins 
are  not  quite  so  precise.  It  would  be  more  accurate  to 
say  it  was  made  by  Rousseauism,  a  movement  which, 
it  is  true,  receives  its  most  equable  and  beautiful  exposi- 
tion in  the  works  of  Rousseau,  but  which  was  wider 
than  himself.  What  made  the  French  Revolution  was 
a  conception  to  which  the  mind  of  man  was  slowly 
turning — the  conception  of  the  Individual  Life. 

States  were  now  to  be  judged  by  the  amount  of  inde- 
pendence they  allowed  to  their  citizens.  So  embracing 
indeed  was  the  new  conception  of  Liberty  that  it  passed 
outside  the  confines  of  the  several  states.  Coleridge 
wanted  to  start  a  state  where  no  state  was.  No  state 
was  to  arrogate  the  power  to  interfere  with  its  neigh- 
bours. Just  as  no  individual  or  collection  of  individuals 
had  a  right  to  coerce  any  other  individual,  so  no  state  or 
collection  of  states  had  the  right  to  coerce  any  other. 


BURNS  63 

If  the  worship  of  Individual  Liberty  is  the  most 
striking  note  of  the  new  poetry,  hardly  less  prominent 
is  the  worship  of  National  Liberty,  the  spirit  of  Nation- 
alism. Every  nation,  every  collection  of  men  owning 
a  common  history  and  conscious  of  homogeneity,  had 
an  indefeasible  right,  as  long  as  it  did  not  interfere  with 
others,  to  live  its  life  in  its  own  way.  It  might  not  be 
a  very  good  way.  Poland  was  not  a  high  example  of 
a  civilised  state  ;  yet '  Freedom  shrieked  when  Kosciusko 
fell.'  It  might  not  be  a  good  way,  yet  on  the  whole, 
just  as  societies  arrived  at  the  best  results  by  allowing 
free  play  to  individual  development,  so  the  world  arrives 
at  the  best  results  by  allowing  free  play  to  national 
developments — 

'  See  approach  proud  Edward's  power — 
Edward  !  chains  and  slaverie.' 

All  this  was  in  the  domain  of  theory.  Publicists  still 
dispute  as  to  the  respective  spheres  of  the  Protagonists 
in  the  modern  duel  of  the  Man  versus  the  State.  Im- 
perial Britain  and  Imperial  Germany  call  up  the  sun 
with  their  respective  Growings,  while  the  world  amazed 
looks  on.  The  small  nations  produce  our  only  litera- 
ture, or  the  oppressed  of  Russia's  evil  dream.  The 
world  has  not  yet  settled  these  questions  of  govern- 
ment, nor  ever  will.  Truth  is  powerful,  but  Mammon 
will  prevail. 

Yet  in  these  times  of  which  I  speak,  there  seemed 
no  limit  to  the  power  of  Liberty  and  Love.  How 
happy  to  have  been  born  when  the  whole  past  seemed 
slain,  and  to  have  moved  among  those  people  with 
shining  faces  who  stood  on  the  edge  of  a  new  world. 
Coleridge,  indeed,  in  his  youth  hears  this  music  leaving 
Earth  and  floating  heavenward,  sung  even  by  the  '  blue 


64  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

rejoicing  sky,'  the  sky  in  which,  in  fact,  marches  '  the 
army  of  unalterable  law '  ;  but  to  see  it  was  the  main 
thing,  to  believe  that  the  Universe  was  voting  Liberal 
and  had  put  on  the  cap  of  the  young  Republic. 

In  the  eighteenth  century,  poets  wrote  of  statesmen, 
soldiers,  courtiers.  In  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth- 
century  movement  the  poets  were  interested  in  human 
beings — human  beings  variously  employed,  but  interest- 
ing because  they  were  human  beings.  The  human 
heart  and  its  primary  movements  and  affections,  Man 
and  Nature  as  the  one  freshly  affects  and  feels  the  other, 
these  are  the  subjects  which  are  dealt  with  by  Burns 
and  Wordsworth. 

The  pure  idea  of  the  French  Revolution  in  all  its 
nakedness  and  ideality  is  seen  most  clearly  in  the  poetry 
of  Shelley,  but  that  idea  differently  interpreted  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  best  part  of  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth 
and  Burns.  With  Burns  our  national  poetry  takes  fire 
again  as  it  took  fire  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare. 

Great  as  are  Cowper's  occasional  triumphs  on  simple 
subjects  and  in  a  simple  style,  he  is  properly  to  be 
described  as  the  last  of  the  eighteenth-century  poets. 
He  is  an  eighteenth-century  poet  with  gleams  of  the 
nineteenth  century  in  him. 

Exactly  the  reverse  can  be  said  of  Burns.  He  is 
a  nineteenth-century  poet  who  betrays  traces  of  the 
tradition  that  was  then  rapidly  expiring.  And  this  is 
markedly  true  ;  for  while  the  eighteenth-century  work 
in  Cowper  does  not  fall  markedly  in  tone  and  sentiment 
below  his  level — indeed  it  is  his  level,  his  level  which 
occasionally  he  shoots  above — the  eighteenth-century 
work  in  Burns  can  be  distinguished  by  the  merest  novice 


BURNS  65 

in  criticism  from  the  real  poetry  of  Burns,  so  markedly 
does  it  lie  below  the  mountain-ranges  of  his  mind. 

To  speak  of  this  eighteenth-century  work  before 
speaking  of  the  real  poetry  of  Burns,  of  the  real 
Burns. 

In  the  first  place,  occurring  very  often  in  his  poetry, 
chiefly,  no  doubt,  in  the  English  poems — but  yet 
occurring  very  often,  for  the  English  poems  are  very 
numerous — there  are  slips  into  the  artificialism  of 
speech  which  was  the  worst  part  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  habit. 

Occasionally  there  is  a  terrifying  lapse  as  when  the 
poet  says,  recollecting  the  fate  of  Mary  Stuart, 

'  Tho'  something  like  moisture  conglobes  in  my  eye ' ; 
and  there  are  references  without  number  to  Phoebus, 
Venus,  the  Queen  of  Love,  Bacchus,  Boreas  and  the 
rest,  personages  in  whom  Burns  did  not  believe.  Nor 
are  these  trifles  ;  they  bear  witness  to  a  habit  of  mind, 
the  same  habit  that  bears  larger  fruit  in  the  whole 
series  of  unreal  pastorals.  Burns  was  no  pastoral 
poet ;  for  the  pastoral  he  had  no  real  feeling  ;  it  was  as 
obviously  an  exercise  as  it  was  obviously  an  unsuccess- 
ful exercise  for  him. 

Still  more  plainly  do  we  find  traces  of  this  weakness 
in  Burns's  persistent  habit  of  dressing  up  his  thoughts, 
of  his  failure  to  trust  them.  Take  this  exclamation 
from  *  Highland  Mary,' 

'  But  oh  !  fell  Death's  untimely  frost, 
That  nipt  my  Flower  sae  early  ! ' 

or  this  from  'Thou  Gloomy  December,' 

1  Fond  lovers'  parting  is  sweet,  painful  pleasure, 
Hope  beaming  mild  on  the  soft  parting  hour ; 
But  the  dire  feeling,  O  farewell  for  ever  ! 
Anguish  unmingled,  and  agony  pure  ! ' 


66  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

or  this  from  the  '  Farewell  to  Nancy,' 

'  Deep  in  heart-wrung  tears  I  '11  pledge  thee, 
Warring  sighs  and  groans  I  '11  wage  thee. 
Who  shall  say  that  Fortune  grieves  him, 
While  the  star  of  hope  she  leaves  him  ?' 

or  this  from  '  Mary  in  Heaven,' 

'  O  Mary  !  dear  departed  shade  ! 

Where  is  thy  place  of  blissful  rest  ? 
See'st  thou  thy  lover  lowly  laid  ? 
Hear'st  thou  the  groans  that  rend  his  breast  ?' 

or  the  whole  poem  which  follows.  Miss  Isabella 
M'Leod  of  Raasay  had  lost  her  sister  and  her  sister's 
husband,  and  Burns  thus  painted  Isabella's  woe  :— 

*  Raving  winds  around  her  blowing, 
Yellow  leaves  the  woodland  strowing, 
By  a  river  hoarsely  roaring, 
Isabella  stray'd  deploring  : — 

"  Farewell,  hours  that  late  did  measure 
Sunshine  days  of  joy  and  pleasure  ; 
Hail,  thou  gloomy  night  of  sorrow, 
Cheerless  night  that  knows  no  morrow  ! 

O'er  the  past  too  fondly  wandering, 
On  the  hopeless  future  pondering  ; 
Chilly  grief  my  life-blood  freezes, 
Fell  despair  my  fancy  seizes. 

Life,  thou  soul  of  every  blessing, 
Load  to  misery  most  distressing, 
Gladly  how  would  I  resign  thee, 
And  to  dark  oblivion  join  thee  !  "  ' 

Nor  are  these  instances  perversely  selected.  The  last, 
with  its  'load  to  misery  most  distressing,'  is  almost 
the  only  poem  of  Burns  about  which  he  was  actually 
conceited.  It  was  once  sung  in  his  presence  by  a  lady 
who  knew  not  the  author,  and  she  asked  him  if  he  knew 


BURNS  67 

whose  were  .the  words.  *  Mine,  madam — they  are 
indeed  my  very  best  verses '  ;  and  he  goes  on  :  i  She 
took  not  the  smallest  notice  of  them  !  I  was  going  to 
make  a  New-Testament  quotation  about  "  casting 
pearls,"  but  that  would  be  too  virulent,  for  the  lady 
is  actually  a  woman  of  sense  and  taste.' 

The  most  irritating  feature  of  this  habit  of  writing 
execrably  is  that  it  pursues  Burns  even  when  he  is 
writing  at  his  best.  '  To  Mary  in  Heaven '  has  lines 
of  merit : — 

*  Time  but  th'  impression  stronger  makes, 
As  streams  their  channels  deeper  wear.' 

The  quotation  from  the  *  Farewell  to  Nancy '  precedes 
an  immortal  verse.  A  poem  will  open  with  a  snatch 
of  song  so  penetrating  in  its  depth  of  passionate  feeling, 
love,  anger,  grief,  that  one  seems  to  hear  the  thud  of 
a  blow  that  has  gone  home.  Here  is  a  picture,  a  few 
swift  words,  of  the  lover  intoxicated  with  success  : — 

'  Yestreen  I  had  a  pint  o'  wine, 

A  place  where  body  saw  na  ; 
Yestreen  lay  on  this  breast  oj  mine 
The  gowden  locks  of  Anna.' 

But  after  this  it  goes  on  : — 

'The  hungry  Jew  in  wilderness, 

Rejoicing  o'er  his  manna, 
Was  naething  to  my  hiney  bliss 
Upon  the  lips  of  Anna.' 

And  here  is  another  where  the  anxiety  of  the  lover 
foreboding  doom  is  completely  expressed.  The  verse 
is  heavy  with  anxious  though  hopeless  fears  : — 

'  Long,  long  the  night, 

Heavy  comes  the  morrow, 
While  my  soul's  delight 
Is  on  her  bed  of  sorrow.' 


68  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

But  after  this  it  goes  on  : —  % 

'  Can  I  cease  to  care, 

Can  I  cease  to  languish, 
While  my  darling  Fair, 

Is  on  the  couch  of  anguish  ! ' 

What  is  to  be  made  of  such  discrepancy  ?  But  to  say 
this  is  not  to  say  all.  It  is  to  say  that  Burns  on 
occasion  writes  execrably,  and  so  he  does.  It  is  to 
say  that  he  does  so  most  commonly  when,  not  content 
with  the  simple  expression  of  a  real  feeling,  he 
attempts  in  true  eighteenth-century  manner  to  dress 
up  his  thoughts. 

But  when  we  have  thus  sifted  Burns's  bad  work  from 
his  good  and  put  it  behind  us,  it  is  still  to  be  said  that 
his  good  work  is  not  all  of  a  piece.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  of  two  distinct  pieces.  It  is  all  good  writing,  but 
it  is  not  all  poetically  good. 

There  are  indeed  two  sides  to  the  real  Burns,  the 
Burns  who  is  in  his  element,  writing  with  the  security 
of  mastery  and  from  his  heart.  There  are  two  sides  to 
this  Burns — the  prose  side  and  the  poetical  side.  On 
the  one  side  his  triumphs  are  in  their  way  as  undoubted 
as  his  triumphs  on  the  other.  But  the  one  series  of 
triumphs  would  never  have  entitled  him  to  the  name 
of  a  poet ;  the  other  has  established  his  fame  as  a 
poetical  writer — the  poetical  writer,  may  I  say? 
Fortunately  here,  and  the  distinction  cannot  be  made 
with  Burns's  bad  work,  the  distinction  is  one  of  date. 
Almost  all  Burns's  prose  work  in  verse  was  finished 
by  the  time  he  was  twenty-eight.  Almost  all  his 
poetry  was  written  in  his  last  ten  years. 

Of  his  prose  work  in  verse  what  it  is  necessary  to 
say  can  be  said  shortly.  It  is  indeed  most  excellent, 


BURNS  69 

but  it  is  prose  work  and  very  definitely  so.  Its  sub- 
jects are  politics,  theology,  morals  ;  its  manner  is  terse 
and  sober  to  a  degree  :  nowhere  are  the  sound  sense 
and  masculine  judgment  of  the  social  human  being 
better  in  evidence. 

The  form  the  verses  take  is  generally  that  of  the 
admonitory  or  friendly  epistle,  the  rhyming  epistle 
written  to  Davie,  Lapraik,  Simson,  or  a  Young  Friend  ; 
sometimes,  however,  they  take  the  form  of  a  theological 
remonstrance  addressed  to  the  strait-laced,  and  some- 
times even  that  of  the  political  song. 

Enclosing  the  famous  lines  '  A  man 's  a  man  for 
a'  that '  to  his  correspondent,  George  Thomson,  Burns 
says  with  admirable  truth,  '  The  following  will  be 
allowed,  I  think,  to  be  two  or  three  pretty  good  prose 
thoughts  inverted  into  rhyme.'  It  is  the  criticism  of 
the  mature  poet,  it  is  true  ;  when  Burns  passed  this 
criticism  he  was  not  in  the  habit  of  writing  prose  in 
verse,  but  it  is  a  perfectly  true  criticism,  and  a  perfectly 
true  criticism  of  nearly  half  of  Burns's  total  output. 

Take  this  from  the  '  Epistle  to  J.  Lapraik,' 

'A  set  o'dull,  conceited  hashes 
Confuse  their  brains  in  college-classes  ! 
They  gang  in  stirks,  and  come  out  asses'  ; 

or  this  from  the  '  Epistle  to  William  Simson,' 

'  The  muse,  nae  poet  ever  fand  her, 
Till  by  himsel  he  learn'd  to  wander '  ; 

or  this  from  the  l  Epistle  to  a  Young  Friend,' 

'A  man  mayhae  an  honest  heart, 

Tho'  poortith  hourly  stare  him  ; 
A  man  may  tak  a  neibor's  part, 

Yet  hae  nae  cash  to  spare  him '  ; 


70  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

or  this, 

1  I  '11  no  say,  men  are  villains  a' ; 

The  real,  harden'd  wicked, 
Wha  hae  nae  check  but  human  law, 

Are  to  a  few  restricket  ; 
But,  och  !  mankind  are  unco  weak, 

An'  little  to  be  trusted  ; 
If  self  the  wavering  balance  shake, 
It 's  rarely  right  adjusted  ! ' 

or  this,  as  obvious,  from  the  l  Epistle  to  Davie,' 

'  It 's  no  in  titles  nor  in  rank  ; 
It's  no  in  wealth  like  Lon'on  bank, 

To  purchase  peace  and  rest  ; 
It 's  no  in  makin'  muckle,  mair  ; 
It's  no  in  books,  it 's  no  in  lear, 

To  make  us  truly  blest  : 
If  happiness  hae  not  her  seat 

An'  centre  in  the  breast, 
We  may  be  wise,  or  rich,  or  great, 

But  never  can  be  blest ; 
Nae  treasures  nor  pleasures 

Could  make  us  happy  lang  ; 
The  heart  aye  's  the  part  aye 

That  makes  us  right  or  wrang' ; 

or   this,    more   daring,    from    the   address    to    '  Scotch 
Drink,' 

'  When  neibors  anger  at  a  plea, 
An'  just  as  wud  as  wud  can  be, 
How  easy  can  the  barley-bree 

Cement  the  quarrel  ! 
Its  aye  the  cheapest  lawyer's  fee 

To  taste  the  barrel.' 

Nor  must  the  excellence  of  the  sentiments  disguise 
their  character  from  us.  It  is  an  admirable  prose 
admonition,  but  it  is  still  a  prose  admonition,  when 
Burns  advises  the  '  Unco  Guid  ': — 

'Then  gently  scan  your  brother  man, 

Still  gentler  sister  woman  ; 
Tho'  they  may  gang  a  kennin  wrang, 
To  step  aside  is  human  : 


BURNS  71 

One  point  must  still  be  greatly  dark, 

The  moving  Why  they  do  it ; 
And  just  as  lamely  can  ye  mark, 

How  far  perhaps  they  rue  it.' 

Here  is  even  a  thought  tenderly  wise,  with  the  tender 
wisdom  of  Gray  : — 

'The  poor  inhabitant  below 
Was  quick  to  learn  and  wise  to  know, 
And  keenly  felt  the  friendly  glow, 

And  softer  flame  ; 
But  thoughtless  follies  laid  him  low, 

And  stain'd  his  name  ! ' 

And  here  is  a  humane  sentiment : — 

4  Many  and  sharp  the  num'rous  ills 

Inwoven  with  our  frame  ! 
More  pointed  still  we  make  ourselves, 

Regret,  remorse,  and  shame  ! 
And  man,  whose  heaven-erected  face 

The  smiles  of  love  adorn, — 
Man's  inhumanity  to  man 

Makes  countless  thousands  mourn  ! ' 

Here  is  a  social  poetry  deeper  in  observation  than 
Pope's,  richer  in  humanity  than  Goldsmith's,  more 
weighty  than  Johnson's.  The  fact  is,  such  writing 
has  a  ripeness,  a  grip,  a  huge  tense  sense,  that  makes 
the  best  work  of  the  eighteenth  century  look  like 
child's  play. 

It  may  be  asked  how  a  writer  with  the  prose  side 
so  fully  and  masculinely  developed  in  him  ever  became 
so  astonishing  a  poet.  The  answer  is  that  the  process 
was  gradual. 

Among  this  prose  work  one  finds  imbedded  work 
of  a  totally  different  order,  work  of  a  truly  poetical  kind. 
The  admirably  balanced  and  sober  mind  takes  fire 
sporadically  ;  first  of  all  because  of  the  flame  within 
him  always  at  white  heat,  the  *  softer  flame ' ;  afterwards 


72  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

because  his  admirable  good  sense  itself  bubbles  to  a 
flame  in  the  rush  and  hurry  of  his  unapproachable 
satires  ;  unapproachable  because,  while  wildly  fierce  at 
times,  they  have  always,  sometimes  even  to  excess  for 
satire,  the  sap  and  juice  of  his  abundant  and  rich 
humanity.  The  Hebraic  freedoms,  the  strokes  of 
Dutch  painting  do  not  disguise  this,  rather  they 
emphasise  it.  There  is  an  abandon,  a  zest  about 
Burns  at  his  freest  as  a  satirist,  in  'The  Jolly 
Beggars,'  '  Holy  Willie,'  'The  Holy  Fair,'  that  is 
truly  poetical. 

Burns,  the  greatest  of  Scotch  humourists,  and  a 
humorist  essentially  Scotch  with  all  the  sly  kindness 
of  the  race,  has  indeed  left  to  the  Scotch  people— to 
the  world  too,  no  doubt,  but  especially  to  the  Scotch 
people — a  wholly  unique  collection  of  humorous 
poems.  I  do  not  say  they  are  all  poetical — there  are 
many  of  them  that  are  essentially  prose  produc- 
tions— but  they  almost  all  have  glints  of  poetry  in 
them. 

They  are  conceived  in  so  full  a  vein  of  humour 
that  it  runs  over  constantly  into  those  bold  sallies, 
those  outbursts  of  unpremeditated  feeling,  the  habit 
of  indulging  in  which  belongs  to  the  poetical  mind 
alone.  In  Burns's  humorous  verses,  not  merely  in  the 
satires  which  everyone  knows  ;  in  Burns's  humorous 
narratives  like  '  Tarn  o'  Shanter '  ;  in  his  mock  elegies, 
1  Tarn  Samson  's  dead,'  '  Poor  Mailie's  Elegy '  ;  in  his 
tales  of  bucolic  love,  '  Last  May  a  braw  wooer  cam 
doun  the  lang  glen,'  in  these  poems  as  well  as  in  the 
satires  there  is,  if  one  cares  to  look  for  it,  a  great  deal 
of  poetry.  Pathos  and  humour  are  so  blended  and 
come  with  such  unstudied  expression  that  you  have 


BURNS  73 

not  only  a  great  humorous  writer  but  a  great  poetical 
writer  too. 

These  are,  perhaps,  the  poems  for  which  Burns 
is  most  loved  in  his  native  country — a  country  of 
long-headed  prose-writers  with  a  Celtic  dash  in  them. 
He  is  loved  not  so  much  because  he  is  pre-eminently 
a  poet,  though  that  he  is  so  is  the  main  fact  about 
him,  but  because  in  his  best-known  poems  there  is 
displayed  the  humour  and  good  sense  of  his  country- 
men, touched  with  ecstasy  ;  poetical  rapture  fleshified, 
or  rather  good  solid  bone  and  muscle  rising  to  a 
spiritual  exhilaration.  For  the  poor  Lowland  Scot  in 
his  damp  cottage  or  his  hive  of  modern  industry,  to 
read  these  humorous  poems  is  indeed  to  taste  the 
rapture  of  rising  irresponsibility.  For  him  it  is  an 
intellectual  intoxication.  His  chosen  poet,  the  chosen 
poet  of  the  Scots,  lives  constantly  among  those  flashes 
which  come  from  the  soberest  after  a  good  dinner, 
and  set  the  table  in  a  roar.  Caution,  solidity,  prudence, 
they  are  there,  but  they  do  not  bar  the  door  on  humour 
*  in  the  dawing.' 

'  There 's  nought  but  care  on  ev'ry  han', 

In  ev'ry  hour  that  passes,  O  : 
What  signifies  the  life  o'  man, 
An'  'twere  na  for  the  lasses,  O  ? 

The  war'ly  race  may  riches  chase, 

An'  riches  still  may  fly  them,  O  ; 
An'  tho'  at  last  they  catch  them  fast, 

Their  hearts  can  ne'er  enjoy  them,  O. 

But  gie  me  a  cannie  hour  at  e'en, 

My  arms  about  my  dearie,  O  ; 
An'  war'ly  cares  and  war'ly  men, 

May  a'  gae  tapsalteerie,  O  ! 


74  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

For  you  sae  douce,  ye  sneer  at  this, 
Ye 're  nought  but  senseless  asses,  O  : 

The  wisest  man  the  warF  e'er  saw, 
He  dearly  lov'd  the  lasses,  O. 

Auld  Nature  swears,  the  lovely  dears 

Her  noblest  work  she  classes,  O  : 
Her  prentice  han'  she  try'd  on  man, 
An'  then  she  made  the  lasses,  O. 
Green  grow  the  rashes,  O  ; 
Green  grow  the  rashes,  O  ; 
The  sweetest  hours  that  e'er  I  spend, 

Are  spent  among  the  lasses,  O.' 

There  is  something  in  this  that  sets  one  thinking  of 
characters  more  emphasised  than  those  of  the  South. 
There  is  an  appreciation  of  the  grey  of  life  in  it,  a  kind 
of  Glasgow  sky  for  a  background,  and  a  brave  sense  of 
the  delights  of  human  kind.  There  is  this,  and  added 
to  this  a  sudden  breach  of  decorum,  a  rising  note,  as 
if  prudence  were  finally  to  be  given  the  good-bye,  that 
is  eminently  the  sad  Northerner  touched  with  emotion. 
In  this  class  of  poems,  if  in  any  single  class  of 
poems,  is  to  be  found  the  real  Burns.  But  this  versa- 
tile genius  was  developing,  had,  in  fact,  developed 
another  side  of  him  before  he  died.  There  pours  forth 
from  him  in  his  last  eight  years  a  cataract  '  of  undying 
song.'  Burns,  who,  had  he  died  at  thirty  would  have 
died  a  national  poet,  dying  at  thirty-seven  died  as  the 
folk-poet  of  the  world. 

The  songs  of  the  people  !  Nowhere  in  any  literature 
is  there  to  be  found  so  great  a  folk-poet  as  Burns.  He 
is  sufficiently  near  to  the  soil  to  feel  with  the  perfect 
simplicity  and  directness  of  the  true  folk-poet.1  One 

1  And  also  to  be  familiar  with  the  oral  literature  of  the  soil,  the 
songs  of  the  countryside,  of  which  Burns  made  as  free  use  as  Shake- 
speare of  the  plays  of  the  early  Elizabethan  stage.  Like  all  the 
greatest  original  forces  Burns  was  also  a  product,  and  many  of  his 
songs  were  more  than  a  hundred  years  in  the  making. 


BURNS  75 

can  trace  this  quality,  perhaps  the  rarest  of  all  poetical 
qualities,  as  prominent  in  him  quite  early.  When  he 
is  twenty-two  he  thus  celebrates  a  rustic  mistress  : — 

'  Yestreen,  when  to  the  trembling  string 

The  dance  gaed  thro'  the  lighted  ha', 
To  thee  my  fancy  took  its  wing, 

I  sat,  but  neither  heard  nor  saw  : 
Tho'  this  was  fair  and  that  was  braw 

And  yon  the  toast  of  a'  the  town, 
I  sigh'd,  and  said  amang  them  a', 

"  Ye  are  na  Mary  Morison."' 

'  A  poor  fiddler  at  a  village  practising  on  the  sanded 
floor  of  some  school-room,'  and  the  buxom  lassie  who 
is  going  out  to  service  polkaing  up  and  down  the  floor. 
It  is  tremendous,  and  reminds  one  of  nothing  so  much 
as  of  the  cry  of  Leontes  when  at  last  he  understands 
that  the  seeming  statue  is  Hermione,  and  alive  : — 

'  Oh,  she's  warm.' l 

Or  take  this,  with  its  picture  of  the  boon  companion 
sitting  in  the  candle-blaze  till  the  night  is  late  : — 

*  As  I  cam  by  Crochallan, 
I  cannilie  keeket  ben  ; 
Rattlin',  roarin'  Willie 
Was  sittin'  at  yon  boord-en'  ; 

Sittin'  at  yon  boord-en', 

And  amang  gude  companie  ; 
Rattlin',  roarin'  Willie, 

You  're  welcome  hame  to  me  ! ' 


1  For  this  comparison  I  am  indebted  to  the  conversation  of  the 
author  of '  Tannhauser '  and  '  Merlin,3  the  late  Mr.  Macleod  Fullarton, 
Q.C.,  who  was  responsible  (Lallan  Songs  and  German  Lyrics}  for 
some  of  our  best  translations  from  Heine. 


76  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

There  is  an  unmatchable  freedom  in  the  lollop  of  the 
verses,  freer  than  the  canter  of  the  sleekest  mare  : — 

'  My  love,  she's  but  a  lassie  yet, 
My  love,  she's  but  a  lassie  yet ; 
We  '11  let  her  stand  a  year  or  twa, 
She'll  no  be  hauf  sae  saucy  yet.' 

In  comin'  by  the  brig  o'  Dye, 

At  Darlet  we  a  blink  did  tarry  ; 
As  day  was  dawin  in  the  sky, 

We  drank  a  health  to  bonie  Mary. 
Theniel  Menzies'  bonie  Mary, 
Theniel  Menzies'  bonie  Mary, 
Charlie  Grigor  tint  his  plaidie, 
Kissin'  Theniel's  bonie  Mary.' 

Will  ye  go  to  the  Hielands,  Leezie  Lindsay, 

Will  ye  go  to  the  Hielands  wi'  me  ? 
Will  ye  go  to  the  Hielands,  Leezie  Lindsay, 

My  pride  and  my  darling  to  be.' 

'  It's  up  yon  heathery  mountain, 
And  down  yon  scroggy  glen, 
We  daurna  gang  a-milking, 
For  Charlie  and  his  men  ! ' 

*  Mally's  meek,  Mally's  sweet, 
Mally 's  modest  and  discreet ; 
Mally's  rare,  Mally's  fair, 
Mally 's  ev'ry  way  complete.' 

Occasionally  in  Shelley's  songs  there  is  a  strain  of 
unearthly  music,  a  faint  air  coming  from  aloft,  getting 
itself  sung  by  harps  celestial  and  to  melodies  not  ours. 
Burns's  command  of  verse,  in  its  own  way,  is  as  won- 
derful :  it  is  like  a  human  being,  but  it  is  like  a  human 
being  in  tune,  so  fresh,  so  easy ;  the  natural  song  of  the 
earth  and  its  toilers  ;  like  running  water. 

However,  it  is  the  sentiment  of  Burns's  songs  that  has 
caught  the  ear  of  the  world.  There  is  the  same  fluent 
music,  only  there  has  entered  into  it  the  music  of 


BURNS  77 

humanity,  its  passion,  its  grief,  its  strange  come-from- 
nowhere  melancholy,  the  eerie  feeling  we  have  some- 
times while  living,  because  all  of  us  by  the  same  road 
are  compelled  to  go. 

Sometimes  we  have  the  sentiment  in  its  lightest 
form  where  the  tone  has  not  begun  to  deepen  and 
where  the  humour  is  still  alive  ;  sometimes  we  have  it 
with  just  a  suspicion  of  the  sense  of  loss  : — 

*  Bonie  wee  thing,  cannie  wee  thing, 

Lovely  wee  thing,  wert  them  mine, 
I  wad  wear  thee  in  my  bosom, 
Lest  my  jewel  it  should  tine.' 

Or  again,  with  a  most  delicious  open  melancholy  : — 

'  Out  over  the  Forth,  I  look  to  the  north  ; 

But  what  is  the  north  and  its  Highlands  to  me  ? 
The  south  nor  the  east  gie  ease  to  my  breast, 
The  far  foreign  land,  or  the  wide  rolling  sea. 

But  I  look  to  the  west  when  I  gae  to  rest, 

That  happy  my  dreams  and  my  slumbers  may  be  ; 

For  far  in  the  west  lives  he  I  loe  best, 
The  man  that  is  dear  to  my  babie  and  me.' 

Or  more  poignantly  : — 

'  My  heart  is  sair — I  dare  na  tell, 

My  heart  is  sair  for  Somebody  ; 
I  could  wake  a  winter  night l 
For  the  sake  o'  Somebody.' 

More  poignantly  still : — 

'  O  wert  thou  in  the  cauld  blast, 
On  yonder  lea,  on  yonder  lea, 
My  plaidie  to  the  angry  airt, 

I  'd  shelter  thee,  I  'd  shelter  thee.' 


1  The  last  two  lines  are  at  least  as  old  as  Ramsay's  Tea  Table 
Miscellany,  but  they  are  not  part  of  a  poignant  song. 


78  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Or  where  the  melancholy  is  creeping  into  the  tale  of 
love  : — 

'  O  wat  ye  wha  's  in  yon  town, 
Ye  see  the  e'enin'  sun  upon, 
The  dearest  maid  's  in  yon  town, 
That  e'enin'  sun  is  shining  on ' ; 

or  touched  with  the  tear  of  parting  : — 

1 1  '11  aye  ca'  in  by  yon  town, 

And  by  yon  garden -green  again  ; 
I  '11  aye  ca'  in  by  yon  town, 
And  see  my  bonie  Jean  again.' 

On  this  theme,  indeed,  recollection,  reminiscence,  part- 
ing, Burns  has  written  for  all  time,  from 

'  We  twa  hae  paidl'd  in  the  burn,' 

of  the  Scotch  good-night,  to  the  bold  simplicity  of 
'  John  Anderson '  and  the  beautiful  lines  which  he 
added  to  the  old  quatrain  : — 

4  Go,  fetch  to  me  a  pint  o'  wine, 
And  fill  it  in  a  silver  tassie  ; 
That  I  may  drink  before  I  go, 
A  service  to  my  bonie  lassie ' ; 

the  four  beautiful  lines  full  of  the  smell  of  the  sea  :— 

'  The  boat  rocks  at  the  pier  o'  Leith  ; 

Fu'  loud  the  wind  blaws  frae  the  Ferry  ; 
The  ship  rides  by  the  Berwick-law, 
And  1  maun  leave  my  bonie  Mary.' 

There  is  a  mingling  of  the  sadness  which  comes  with 
time  and  a  rapturous  confession  of  the  joys  of  the  past 
in  this  most  famous  piece  :— 

'  How  long  and  dreary  is  the  night, 

When  I  am  frae  my  dearie  ! 

I  sleepless  lye  frae  e'en  to  morn, 

Tho'  I  were  ne'er  so  weary  : 


BURNS  79 

When  I  think  on  the  happy  days 

I  spent  wij  you  my  dearie  : 
And  now  what  lands  between  us  lie, 

How  can  I  be  but  eerie  ! 

How  slow  ye  move,  ye  heavy  hours, 

As  ye  were  wae  and  weary  ! 
It  was  na  sae  ye  glinted  by, 

When  I  was  wi'  my  dearie  ! ' 

The  sudden  return  of  the  mind  upon  its  distant  joy, 
and  the  triumph  of  that  ungrammatical  '  It  was  not  so 
ye  glinted  by,'  might  perhaps  stand  as  the  triumphant 
instance  of  the  lightning  effects  of  poetry. 

Yet  sudden  transitions  from  one  mood   to  another 
are  not  common  with   Burns.     He  looses  himself  on 
a  single  note,  seizing  with  poetical  insistence  on  the 
poetical   heart   of  the   matter.      When    Byron    thinks 
of  a  battlefield  he  thinks  effectively,  thinks  of  these 
'  Rider  and  horse, — friend,  foe, — in  one  red  burial  blent.' 
When   Burns  thinks  of  it,  he  thinks  only  of  natural 
loss.     There  was  much  to  say  of  Culloden  or  Drumossie 
moor,  but  the  poet  has  this  only  to  say  : — 

'The  lovely  lass  o'  Inverness, 

Nae  joy  nor  pleasure  can  she  see  ; 

For,  e'en  to  morn  she  cries  "  alas  ! " 
And  ay  the  saut  tear  blin's  her  e'e. 

"  Drumossie  moor,  Drumossie  day — 

A  waefu'  day  it  was  to  me  ! 
For  there  I  lost  my  father  dear, 

My  father  dear,  and  brethren  three." ' 

It  seizes  upon  the  truth  with  a  deadly  insistence  :— 

*  When  wild  war's  deadly  blast  was  blawn 

And  gentle  peace  returning, 
Wi'  mony  a  sweet  babe  fatherless, 

And  mony  a  widow  mourning.' 


8o  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Yes,  that  is  about  it ;  there  is  perhaps  not  much  more 
to  say  about  wild  war  than  that.  The  chivalry  of  it, 
its  nobility,  its  lost  causes,  Burns  feels  on  occasion, 
but  he  feels  them  as  a  Scotch  patriot  or  Jacobite — 
not  normally,  that  is,  but  only  when  the  most  senti- 
mental part  of  Scotch  history  has  displaced  his  natural 
sentiment ;  and  even  here  he  is  true  to  the  purely 
human  sorrow  when  the  occasion  is  sorrowful : — 

'  It  was  a'  for  our  rightfu'  King 

We  left  fair  Scotland's  strand  ; 
It  was  a'  for  our  rightfu'  King 
We  e'er  saw  Irish  land,  my  dear, 
We  e'er  saw  Irish  land. 

Now  a'  is  done  that  men  can  do, 

And  a'  is  done  in  vain ; 
My  Love  and  Native  Land  fareweel, 

For  I  maun  cross  the  main,  my  dear, 

For  I  maun  cross  the  main. 

He  turn'd  him  right  and  round  about,1 

Upon  the  Irish  shore  ; 
And  gae  his  bridle  reins  a  shake, 

With  adieu  for  evermore,  my  dear. 

And  adieu  for  evermore. 

The  soger  frae  the  wars  returns, 

The  sailor  frae  the  main  ; 
But  I  hae  parted  frae  my  love, 

Never  to  meet  again,  my  dear, 

Never  to  meet  again.' 

The  reality  deepens  at  the  close.  After  all,  it  is 
what  counts.  I  am  sorry  for  the  Russian  people,  but 
I  should  not  think  of  Russia  if  my  own  sorrows  struck 

1  The  third  verse  is  old,  and  was  borrowed  both  by  Burns  and  Scott 
('A  weary  lot  is  thine,  fair  maid  '—Rokeby,  Canto  IV.),  but  whereas  in 
Scott's  lyric  it  beats  the  rest,  Burns  immediately  beats  it  by  sheer 
strength  of  human  sympathy.  Scott  decorates  his  original  charm- 
ingly with  flowers.  Burns  uses  it  as  a  stone  in  his  building. 


BURNS  81 

home.  No  grief  has  the  depth  of  a  private  grief,  and 
Burns,  of  all  poets,  knows  these  primary  facts  about 
human  nature  best,  knows  them  and  lives  with  them. 
From  this  farmer,  peasant,  yeoman  and  exciseman, 
there  is  little  to  disguise  the  realities  of  life.  About 
grief  and  love  he  has  the  last  word,  for  he  feels  both 
simply. 

For  the  lady  of  high  degree,  it  may  not  be  the  pure 
flame  of  love  alone  that  animates  the  breast ;  the  lover 
may  wish  to  possess  what  other  men  desire,  to  possess 
from  a  feeling  akin  to  envy.  Admiration,  a  desire 
for  a  stimulating  companionship,  these  may  mingle 
with  elemental  affection.  It  is  different  with  Mary, 
Jean,  or  Peggy,  the  soft  female  thing  with  whom  his 
whole  being  is  at  rest,  lulled  to  a  sleep  of  contentment 
in  a  companionship  that  can  get  no  words  for  it,  just 
the  companionship  of  mating.  And  this  strange  uni- 
versal human  feeling,  what  the  peasant  feels  for  the 
peasant  lass,  the  unspoken  sympathy  of  the  woman 
as  woman,  has  never  before  or  since  been  voiced 
so  simply — so  simply  that  you  begin  to  understand 
why  the  first  man  yearned  for  his  Eve,  untutored, 
undecorated,  unloquacious  Eve.  It  is  the  male  speak- 
ing ;  the  bird,  beast,  or  man  sharing  a  rapture  common 
to  the  earth.  The  whole  creation  groaneth  ;  yes,  but 
it  pulsates  too  : — 

'  My  Luve  is  like  a  red,  red  rose, 
That's  newly  sprung  in  June  : 
My  Luve  is  like  the  melodic, 
That 's  sweetly  play'd  in  tune. 

As  fair  art  thou,  my  bonie  lass, 

So  deep  in  luve  am  I ; 
And  I  will  luve  thee  still,  my  Dear, 

Till  a'  the  seas  gang  dry. 
F 


82  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Till  a'  the  seas  gang  dry,  my  Dear, 

And  the  rocks  melt  wi'  the  sun  ; 
And  I  will  luve  thee  still,  my  Dear, 

While  the  sands  o'  life  shall  run. 

And  fare-thee-weel,  my  only  Luve  ! 

And  fare-thee-weel,  a  while  ! 
And  I  will  come  again,  my  Luve, 

Tho'  'twere  ten  thousand  mile  ! ' l 

Nothing  is  said  ;  no,  nothing  is  said,  for  there  is 
nothing  to  say.  It  is  a  felt  companionship — a  felt 
companionship  which  the  Browning  of  '  Two  in  the 
Campagna '  and  the  Shelley  of  the  *  Lines  written  in 
the  Bay  of  Naples  '  will  miss  and  must  miss.  Perhaps 
a  man  of  culture  or  convention  must  always,  in  some 
degree,  miss  it,  and  that  is  why  our  cultivated  poets 
write  so  little  love  poetry  that  is  purely  of  the  heart ; 
write,  instead,  love  poetry  that  is  ideal,  or  affected,  or 
romantic  ;  why  Milton  and  even  Shakespeare  are  rather 
poor  hands  at  it,  and  why  Arnold  evidently  thinks 
this  immortal  love  poetry,  perhaps  the  only  true  love 
poetry  in  the  world,  for  Sappho  speaks  of  passion,  of 
light  account.  There  is  seldom  anything  light  or 
vulgar  in  it,  though  equally  there  is  nothing  of 
cultivation.  It  is  true,  a  stream  so  unending  runs  to 
shallows,  chatters  sometimes  when  one  does  not  hear. 
But  always  it  is  grandly  common,  untroubled,  fondness 
in  its  elements  and  without  gene.  To  the  cultivated 
poet  domestic  love  affords  little  opening  for  poignant 


1  This  masterpiece  is  all  made  up  of  snatches  from  various  old 
songs,  and  the  twelfth  line  is  the  only  one  of  which  no  rude  original 
is  known  ;  but  the  snatches  taken  separately  have  no  remarkable 
effect.  How  different  when  a  singleness  of  feeling  welds  them 
together  !  There  is  no  more  striking  instance  in  literature  of  the 
'Ring 'and  the  '  Book.' 


BURNS  83 

themes,  and  yet  with  it  absent  from  his  love-story  there  is, 
for  him,  immediately,  an  impropriety  of  which,  whether 
as  attracting  or  repelling,  there  is  no  thought  in  the 
movements  of  affection.1  Burns  does  not  think  about 
such  things.  The  old  peasant-courtship  of  the  country- 
side supplied  him  subjects  at  once  actual  and  ideal. 
One  sees  the  field  for  the  display  of  feeling,  and  over 
what  experiences  a  poetry  at  once  so  jocular  and  so 
tender,  so  outspoken  and  so  intimate,  might  freely 
range.  Soiled  with  self  his  actual  feelings  were,  but 
how  single  they  become  when  realised  in  their 
merely  human  reference  by  so  natural  an  imagination. 
He  speaks  constantly  of  the  lived  occasion  ;  from  the 
passing  charms  which  he  fits  to  some  world  air,  to 
the  grief  or  ecstasy  which,  generalised  in  the  poetic 
consciousness,  brings  from  him  the  words  of  life. 
Indeed,  these  last  emotions  are  sometimes  mingled, 
and  one  can  see,  at  one  moment,  the  truant  husband- 
lover  and  the  sick  sorrow  he  has  brought  to  the 
friendly  door  ;  the  sick  sorrow  and  the  sick  longing, 
the  sick  longing  and  the  happy  longing,  the  triumph 
in  the  lover's  good  air.  The  verses  which  we  may 
suppose  to  be  spoken  by  his  Jean  are  irresistibly 
affecting,  not  the  less  that  all  is  subdued  by  a  pre- 
vailing melancholy  as  if  the  poet  for  once  had  felt 
the  oppression  of  the  real  : — 


1  It  must  be  admitted  that  Arnold's  own  poetry  affords  an 
instance  of  a  love  poetry  that  is  at  once  cultivated  and  genuine. 
He  writes  very  little  of  it,  but  what  he  does  write  is  beautifully  true. 
Cf.  his  treatment  of  the  Tristram  and  Iseult  theme  with  Tennyson's 
or  Swinburne's.  It  is  curious  that  Swinburne  also  in  his  first 
sketch  introductory  to  this  subject  (Undergraduate  Papers}  starts 
very  genuinely. 


84  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

1  O  how  can  I  be  blythe  and  glad, 

Or  how  can  I  gang  brisk  and  braw. 
When  the  bonie  lad  that  I  lo'e  bes 
Is  o'er  the  hills  and  far  awa  ! 

My  father  pat  me  frae  his  door, 
My  friends  they  hae  disown'd  me  a 

But  I  hae  ane  will  tak  my  part, 
The  bonie  lad  that's  far  awa. 

A  pair  o'  glooves  he  bought  to  me 
And  silken  snoods  he  gae  me  twa 

And  I  will  wear  them  for  his  sake, 
The  bonie  lad  that's  far  awa. 

O  weary  Winter  soon  will  pass, 

And  Spring  will  cleed  the  birken  shaw 

And  my  young  babie  will  be  born, 
And  he  '11  be  hame  that  Js  far  awa.' 


There  is  no  poetry  like  this.  I  do  not  say  that 
there  is  not  greater  poetry,  but  there  is  no  poetry  so 
free  from  any  thought  of  man's  arrangements,  so  im- 
mediately concerned  with  the  feeling  itself.  A  human 
feeling — that  is  what  interests  Burns,  and  it  is  in  the 
expression  of  these  simple,  human  feelings  that  he 
is  unmatched.  A  human  feeling,  because  he  was 
above  all  things  himself  human,  and  spent  nobly, 
generously,  foolishly,  commonly,  in  common  joys  his 
blood  and  tears.  A  stumble  in  the  snow  when  he 
had  left  his  cronies  in  the  bar-parlour  at  Dumfries,  a 
short  but  heavy  sleep,  and  good-bye,  after  a  year's 
weary  fighting,  to  the  sun, — '  Let  him  shine,  my  dear  ; 
he  will  not  shine  much  longer  for  me,' — good-bye 
to  the  sun  and  to  humanity. 

1  A  foolish  life  and  worse,  perhaps.'  No,  the  moral 
is  too  trite  ;  just  the  life  of  the  human  body  as  ex- 
perienced by  the  human  soul — the  soul  sitting  within 


BURNS  85 

its  clay  castle  and  recording  it  so  that  we  who  read 
may  profit.  To  what  purpose?  I  have  often  asked 
myself  as  I  have  read  the  lives  and  heard  the  cries 
of  poets — to  no  other  purpose  but  that  man  may  know 
more  of  man. 


86  POETRY  AND  PROSE 


WORDSWORTH 

WORDSWORTH,  like  Burns,  was  a  child  of  Revolutionary 
idea.  Like  Burns,  also,  the  whole  shape  of  his  mind 
was  affected  by  the  influence  of  writings  breathing 
a  romantic  or  anti-classical  or  anti-formal  spirit.  He 
had,  of  course,  neither  the  same  free  access  as  Burns  to 
the  love-song  of  the  country-side,  nor  Scott's  long  school- 
ing at  one  of  the  fountain-heads  of  ballad  literature.  But 
Burns  had  written  his  own  songs  before  Wordsworth 
was  at  his  zenith,  and,  by  1800,  Philips  and  Percy— 
if  it  was  Philips  who  was  responsible  for  the  1723 
Collection  of  Old  Ballads — were  old  names.  What 
is  worth  remark  in  the  prefaces  of  both  books  is  the 
consciousness  of  the  writers  that  they  were  innovating. 
The  editor  of  the  Collection  of  Old  Ballads  had  largely 
the  interest  of  the  mere  curio-hunter,  but  we  see1  in  his 


1  '  If  there  be  any  Beauties  in  the  Book,  'tis  certainly  his  (the 
reader's)  Business  to  find  them  out ;  and  if  there  ben't— why,  he  can't 
say  I  cheated  him  :  I  never  pretended  to  give  him  anything  more 
than  an  old  Song.  ...  I  would  not  be  thought  to  ridicule  any- 
thing in  Sacred  Writ,  and  therefore  I  will  pass  over  in  Silence,  what 
I  might  say  of  the  Times  of  Moses,  Jephthah  and  David,  and  go 
directly  amongst  the  Pagans.  And  here  the  very  Prince  of  Poets, 
old  Homer,  if  we  may  trust  ancient  Records,  was  nothing  more 
than  a  blind  Ballad-singer.  ...  It  would  be  endless,  to  prove 
that  the  several  Poets  whose  Bustos  I  have  put  in  my  Frontispiece, 
were  Ballad-writers.  For  what  else  can  we  make  of  Pindar's  Lyrics  ? 
Anacreon  would  never  sit  down  contented  without  his  Bottle  and 
his  Song.  Horace  could  drop  the  Praises  of  Augustus  and 


WORDSWORTH  87 

apologetic  and  absurd  preface  how  glad  he  was  of 
the  shield  of  antiquarianism.  Percy  apologises  too. 
'  As  most  of  these  ballads  are  of  great  simplicity, 
and  seem  to  have  been  merely  written  for  the  people, 
the  Editor  was  long  in  doubt,  whether,  in  the  present 
state  of  improved  literature,  they  could  be  deemed 
worthy  of  the  attention  of  the  public.'  Johnson  had 
given  his  sanction  to  the  publication,  his  incapacity  for 
feeling  poetry  blinding  him  to  its  importance,  but  his 
massively  acute  intellect  was  quick  to  take  alarm 
at  its  success.  How  good  a  critic  he  was,1  within 


Maecenas,  to  sing  the  Adventures  of  his  Journey  to  Brundusium 
and  the  Baulk  he  met  with  from  a  Servant  Wench  in  a  Country 
Alehouse  ;  and  this  Song  of  his  it  was,  which  gave  Occasion  to  a 
modern  Ballad  amongst  us,  called,  The  Coy  Cook-maid.  Cowley 
has  left  too  many  Works  of  this  Kind  to  need  quoting  ;  and 
Suckling's  Wedding  will  never  be  forgot.' 

1  '  When  Dr.  Percy  first  published  his  collection  of  ancient 
English  ballads,  perhaps  he  was  too  lavish  in  commendation  of 
the  beautiful  simplicity  and  poetic  merit  he  supposed  himself  to 
discover  in  them.  This  circumstance  provoked  Johnson  to  observe 
one  evening  at  Miss  Reynolds's  tea-table,  that  he  could  rhyme  as 
well,  and  as  elegantly,  in  common  narrative  and  conversation. 
"  For  instance,"  says  he, — 

"  As  with  my  hat  upon  my  head 

I  walk'd  along  the  Strand, 

I  there  did  meet  another  man 

With  his  hat  in  his  hand." 

Or,  to  render  such  poetry  subservient  to  my  own  immediate  use, — 

"  I  therefore  pray  thee,  Renny  dear, 

That  thou  wilt  give  to  me, 
With  cream  and  sugar  soften'd  well, 
Another  dish  of  tea. 

Nor  fear  that  I,  my  gentle  maid, 

Shall  long  detain  the  cup, 
When  once  unto  the  bottom  I 

Have  drunk  the  liquor  up. 


88  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

his  limits,  may  be  gauged  by  his  uneasy  ridicule.  He 
saw  the  danger  to  the  existing  school  of  poetry,  and 
was  the  boldest  in  crying  t  Fire.' 

The  truth  is,  the  eighteenth-century  movement  in 
poetry  was  mortally  wounded  by  Percy's  publication. 
In  his  volumes,  despite  their  odd  jumble  of  contents 
and  his  own  persevering  joinering  work,  men  came 
in  contact  with  a  directness  of  narrative  and  a  simplicity 
of  effect  which  made  the  efforts  of  a  cultivated  literature 
look  extremely  laboured.  At  times  in  these  ballads 
everything  is  accomplished  by  the  mere  telling  of  the 
fact : — 

'  With  that  ther  cam  an  arrowe  hastely 

Forthe  off  a  mightie  wane, 
Hit  hathe  strekene  the  yerle  Duglas 

In  at  the  brest  bane. 

Thoroue  lyvar  and  longs  bathe 

The  sharp  arrowe  ys  gane, 
That  never  after  in  all  his  lyffe  days 

He  spayke  mo  wordes  but  ane.' 

It  has  the  sound  of  ending  in  it. 

Sometimes,  equally  successfully,  the  sentiment  of  an 
occasion  is  fully  brought  out  by  the  realisation  of  the 
event ;  no  comment  is  necessary  : — 

'  So  on  the  morrowe  the  mayde  them  byears 

Off  byrch,  and  hasell  so  "  gray  "  ; 
Many  wedous  with  wepying  tears, 
Cam  to  fach  ther  makys  a-way.' 


Yet  hear,  alas  !  this  mournful  truth, 

Nor  hear  it  with  a  frown  ; — 
Thou  canst  not  make  the  tea  so  fast 

As  I  can  gulp  it  down." 

And  thus  he  proceeded  through  several  more  stanzas,  till  the 
reverend  critic  cried  out  for  quarter.  Such  ridicule,  however,  was 
unmerited.' 

George  Steevens,  the  Editor  of  Shakespeare,  wrote  this  in  1785. 


WORDSWORTH  89 

In  the  typical  romantic  ballad  *  Edom  o'  Gordon,'  a 
serving-man  of  the  lady,  round  whose  castle  burning 
wood  is  set,  turns  traitor  to  her  : — 

'  And  ein  wae  worth  ye,  Jock  my  man, 

I  paid  ye  well  your  hire  ; 
Quhy  pow  ye  out  the  ground-wa  stane, 

To  me  lets  in  the  fire  ? 

Ye  paid  me  weil  my  hire,  lady  ; 

Ye  paid  me  weil  my  fee  : 
But  now  I  me  Edom  o'  Gordon's  man, 

Maun  either  doe  or  die.' 

There  is  no  better  instance  even  in  Wordsworth  of  the 
uncovering  of  the  breast.  The  callous,  low  nature 
has  been  bought,  and  he  runs  no  danger  in  saying 
so  to  his  doomed  lady. 

The  sincerity  of  those  nameless  writers  is  as  great  as 
their  feeling  for  the  picturesque.     In  the  story  of  Sir 
Gawaine's  marriage  we  have  this  expression  : — 
*  I  am  glad  as  grasse  wold  be  of  raine,' 

and  a  little  earlier  the  picture  : — 

*  He  said  as  I  came  over  a  more 
I  see  a  lady  where  shee  sate 
Betweene  an  oke  and  a  green  hollen 
Shee  was  clad  in  red  scarlette.'1 

It  is   difficult  to   characterise  the   pathos   of  some   of 
those  pieces,  so  unobtrusive  is  it,  like  that  felt  through- 
out '  Young  Waters,'  or,  as  often  (as  at  the  end  of  '  O 
Waly,  Waly,'  for  instance),  in  the  mere  statement. 
There  it  misses  the  intensity  of  Burns,  not  on  account 


1  There  is  the  whole  of  forest  greenery  in  this  childish  verse. 
'  The  roo  full  rekeles  ther  sche  rinnes, 

To  make  the  game  and  glee  : 

The  fawcon  and  the  fesaunt  both, 

Amonge  the  holtes  on  hee.' 

Battle  of  Otterbourne. 


90  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

of  any  defect  of  truth  in  the  pathos,  but  just  because 
the  pathos  is  more  unobtrusive.  The  heart  that  beats 
there  is  not  a  mighty  heart  transmuting  sorrow  into 
passion  ;  rather  that  of  one  content  feelingly  to  observe 
the  sorrows  of  the  world. 

In  Percy's  collection  there  are  few  of  those  strokes 
of  driving  power  which  occasionally  distinguished  the 
Scotch  balladists.  There  is  the  familiar  passage  in 
'  Edom  o'  Gordon '  where  the  vivid  colours  of  young 
girlhood  are  contrasted  with  a  violent  death  ; l  there 
is  the  simply  stated  tragedy  in  '  Edward,  Edward,' 
and  in  '  The  Jew's  Daughter  '  the  voice  of  the  poet 
clangs  through  : — 

'  The  lead  is  wondrous  heavy,  mither, 
The  well  is  wondrous  deip.' 

But  in  the  main  the  collection  is  not  rich  in  instances 
of  native  force.  What  it  chiefly  made  clear  to  the 
poetical  genius  of  the  country  was  the  value  of  the 
stated  fact.  To  see  this  we  have  only  to  contrast  these 
volumes  with  such  a  poem  as  Hamilton's  '  Braes  ot 
Yarrow  '  with  its  studied  wistful  pathos  and  its  lovely 
dragging  length  ;  an  effect  produced  by  the  happiest 
management  of  the  artifice  of  iteration. 

The  great  poetic  outburst  round  about  the  year  1800 


1  '  O  bonnie  bonnie  was  hir  mouth, 
And  cherry  were  hir  cheiks, 
And  clear  clear  was  hir  yellow  hair, 
Whareon  the  reid  bluid  dreips.' 
Longfellow  makes  use  of  the  same  motif — 

'  Blue  were  her  eyes  as  the  fairy-flax, 
Her  cheeks  like  the  dawn  of  day, 
And  her  bosom  white  as  the  hawthorn  buds 
That  ope  in  the  month  of  May.' 

It  is  the  weakness  of  Longfellow,  as  it  is  also  his  strength,  that  he 
is  always  happiest  on  the  most  familiar  themes. 


WORDSWORTH  91 

(1785-1815)  had  then  two  causes.  It  was  caused,  in 
part,  by  what  we  call  the  Romantic  Revival  ;  that 
is  the  literary  explanation,  and  in  part  by  the  French 
Revolution  ;  that  is  the  political  explanation.  But  Mr. 
Watts  Dunton  believes  both  those  causes  to  be  causes 
only  immediate.  The  real  determining  cause,  he  says, 
1  was  nothing  less  than  a  great  revived  movement  of  the 
soul  of  man  after  a  long  period  of  prosaic  acceptance  in 
all  things,  including  literature  and  art.'  To  this  revival 
Mr.  Watts  Dunton  gives  the  name  '  Renascence  of 
Wonder.'  'The  phrase,'  he  adds,  'indicates  that 
there  are  two  great  impulses  governing  man,'  one 
at  one  period  of  the  world's  history,  the  other  at 
another,  '  the  impulse  of  acceptance — the  impulse  to 
take  unchallenged  and  for  granted  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  outer  world  as  they  are — and  the  impulse  to 
confront  these  phenomena  with  eyes  of  inquiry  and 
wonder.'  '  Anthropologists  have  often  asked,'  he  says, 
'  what  was  that  lever-power  lying  enfolded  in  the 
dark  womb  of  some  remote  semi-human  brain  which 
by  first  stirring,  lifting,  and  vitalising  other  potential 
and  latent  faculties,  gave  birth  to  man  ?  Would  it  be 
rash  to  assume  that  this  lever-power  was  a  vigorous 
movement  of  the  faculty  of  wonder  ? '  '  There  are  of 
course,'  he  goes  on,  'different  kinds  of  wonder. 
Primitive  poetry  is  full  of  wonder — the  naive  and  eager 
wonder  of  the  healthy  child.  It  is  the  kind  of  wonder 
which  makes  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  so  delightful. 
The  wonder  of  primitive  poetry  passes  as  the  primitive 
conditions  of  civilisation  pass.  And  then  for  the  most 
part  it  can  only  be  succeeded  by  a  very  different  kind 
of  wonder — the  wonder  aroused  by  a  recognition  of  the 
mystery  of  man's  life  and  the  mystery  of  Nature's 


92  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

theatre  on  which  the  human  drama  is  played — the 
wonder,  in  short,  of  ^schylus  and  Sophocles.' 

There  is  a  familiar  passage  in  Biographia  Literaria 
which,  allowing  for  the  fact  that  Coleridge  is  there 
dealing  with  definite  intentions,  is  in  tone  and 
sentiment  very  like  this.  He  is  speaking  of  the 
course  of  thought  which  resulted  in  the  publication  of 
The  Lyrical  Ballads  : — 

'The  thought  suggested  itself  .  .  .  that  a  series 
of  poems  might  be  composed  of  two  sorts.  In  the 
one,  the  incidents  and  agents  were  to  be,  in  part 
at  least,  supernatural  ;  and  the  excellence  aimed  at 
was  to  consist  in  the  interesting  of  the  affections  by  the 
dramatic  truth  of  such  emotions  as  would  naturally 
accompany  such  situations,  supposing  them  real. 
And  real  in  this  sense  they  have  been  to  every  human 
being,  who  from  whatever  source  of  delusion,  has 
at  any  time  believed  himself  under  supernatural 
agency.  For  the  second  class,  subjects  were  to 
be  chosen  from  ordinary  life  ;  the  characters  and 
incidents  were  to  be  such  as  will  be  found  in  every 
village  and  its  vicinity,  where  there  is  a  meditative  and 
feeling  mind  to  seek  after  them,  or  to  notice  them, 
when  they  present  themselves. 

'  In  this  idea,  originated  the  plan  of  the  Lyrical 
Ballads  ;  in  which  it  was  agreed  that  my  endeavours 
should  be  directed  to  persons  and  characters  super- 
natural, or  at  least  romantic ;  yet  so  as  to  transfer 
from  our  inward  nature  a  human  interest  and  a 
resemblance  of  truth  sufficient  to  procure  for  those 
shadows  of  imagination  that  willing  suspension  of 
disbelief  for  the  moment,  which  constitutes  poetic  faith. 
Mr.  Wordsworth,  on  the  other  hand,  was  to  propose 


WORDSWORTH  93 

to  himself  as  his  object,  to  give  the  charm  of  novelty 
to  things  of  every  day,  and  to  excite  a  feeling  analogous 
to  the  supernatural,  by  awakening  the  mind's  attention 
to  the  lethargy  of  custom,  and  directing  it  to  the 
loveliness  and  wonders  of  the  world  before  us ;  an 
inexhaustible  treasure,  but  for  which,  in  consequence 
of  the  film  of  familiarity  and  selfish  solicitude,  we 
have  eyes,  yet  see  not,  ears  that  hear  not,  and  hearts 
that  neither  feel  nor  understand.' 

Wordsworth  was  to  give  the  charm  of  novelty  to 
things  of  every  day,  but  for  Wordsworth  this  was  not 
difficult,  for  he  saw  the  world  newly.  He  had  a  native 
instinct  for  reality ;  his  lonely  childhood  had  made 
his  sensations  real  to  him  ;  his  chief  companions 
shepherds,  '  statesmen '  of  the  dales,  had,  for  back- 
ground to  their  every  emotion,  mountain  and  sky. 
At  times  to  him,  travelling  on  the  hills,  the  bleat  of  a 
sheep  and  the  surrounding  universe  were  the  two 
opposites  that  made  the  all.  During  his  residence  in 
France  he  took  from  the  air  that  wandering  current  of 
Rousseauism  which  was  a  reinforcement  of  his  thoughts. 
That  unenervated  country  life,  the  ways  of  peasants 
providing  for  their  food,  the  individual  values  which 
Rousseau  celebrated,  of  these  he  was  already  fond. 
But  besides  this,  in  himself  he  was  familiar  with 
ecstasies.  Writing  of  him  in  1792,  his  sister  speaks 
of  *  a  sort  of  violence  of  affection,  if  I  may  so  term  it, 
which  demonstrates  itself  every  moment  of  the  day.' 
The  sensations  that  came  to  him  were  not  those  that 
are  usually  associated  with  his  name  ;  on  the  contrary, 
such  as  could  have  been  felt  even  by  the  Wordsworth 
who  is  supposed  to  have  existed.  He  was  a  being  to 


94  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

whom  occurrence  spoke,  so  constituted  as,  of  course,  to 
suffer,  but  also  to  experience 

'  That  pleasurable  feeling  of  blind  love, 
The  pleasure  which  there  is  in  life  itself.' 

This  combination  of  aptitudes  produced  a  poetry  which 
is  a  unique  gift  to  the  English  world.  There  is  no 
other  which  so  well  explains  the  nature  of  poetry, 
which,  without  leaning  in  the  least  to  the  side  of 
poetising,  is  so  essentially  poetical.  He  has  written 
a  great  deal  in  verse,  more  than  lesser  men,  that  is 
not  poetry  ;  he  was  not  careful  in  his  long  poems  to 
raise  the  something  which  is  not  poetry  to  the  level  of 
the  something  which,  though  not  poetry,  is  not  prose  ; 
in  his  late  years  he  amused  himself  with  a  number  of 
exercises  in  which  he  was  too  careful  to  preserve  this 
level  and  was  too  satisfied  with  it.  Sometimes  too,  in 
his  best  period,  though  rarely,  his  anxiety  to  express 
the  fact  led  him  to  express  a  prose  fact ;  all  this  is 
obvious  and  is  the  common  vision  of  the  blind.  But 
his  entire  merit  is  a  poetical  merit :  at  his  best,  and 
constantly,  his  poetry  is  so  purely  poetry,  it  has  so 
little  an  admixture  of  the  particularising  intelligence, 
that  to  some  quick  intellects  it  seems  literally  to  miss 
fire.  The  glass  seems  empty  because  there  is  nothing 
but  pure  water  in  the  glass. 

An  experience  from  the  outside  world  comes  to 
Wordsworth,  and  he  puts  you  in  possession  of  the 
impression  that  experience  made  "when  it  came.  Lan- 
guage is  used,  you  would  have  said,  but  for  your 
experience  of  these  poems,  to  bring  you  nearer  to  the 
emotion  than  language  can.  The  purr  of  a  kitten, 
the  laugh  of  a  child,  the  long  indrawn  breath  of  the 
bereaved,  how  easy  to  understand  ;  and  yet,  because 


WORDSWORTH  95 

Wordsworth  is  using  the  same  vehicle  with  which  we 
commonly,  though  unintentionally — because  we  cannot 
do  otherwise — disguise  our  thoughts,  we  do  not  realise 
what  he  is  doing.  It  took  seons  to  form  a  language  ;  it 
took  Wordsworth  to  unform  one,  to  teach  language  to 
unroll.  The  art  of  speech  fades  away  like  a  thin 
vapour  and  the  heart  is  known. 

Once,  being  near  Derby,  Wordsworth,  to  give 
Professor  Raleigh's  instance,  had  occasion  to  travel 
the  same  road  going  and  returning,  and  it  happened 
to  him,  in  the  morning,  to  observe  a  company  of 
gipsies  resting  by  the  roadside  on  the  heath.  *  The 
poet,  after  a  day  of  crowded  and  changeful  experience 
under  the  open  sky,  returns  to  find  the  group  of  gipsies 
sitting  as  before  round  their  camp-fire.  The  winds 
are  blowing  and  the  clouds  moving,  so  that  the  little 
knot  of  human  beings  seems  the  only  stationary  thing 
in  Nature.'  They  typify  'the  dormancy  of  mere  in- 
dolence' in  a  Universe  where  nothing  is  still.  You 
cannot  bathe  twice  in  the  same  river,  nor  can  the  same 
man  bathe  twice.  He  who  says  so  is  a  different  being 
when  he  writes  the  next  sentence.  Perpetually  slough- 
ing and  renewing,  the  body  is  a  true  analogue  of 
Universal  law.  If  the  heart  stops  beating  for  a  minute 
it  enters  on  a  new  process  of  change,  and  even  the 
thing  we  call  dead  speeds  along  the  road  of  decay. 
The  law  of  life  and  activity  is  the  only  law,  and  Nature 
is,  because  she  is  always  becoming. 

This  is  explication,  the  intellect  having  started 
reasoning  along  a  line  of  thought  suggested  by  an 
opposition.  But  to  the  poet,  the  inactivity  of  these 
vagrants  opens  wide  a  mere  apprehending  : — 

'The  silent  Heavens  have  goings-on  ; 
The  stars  have  tasks— but  these  have  none.' 


96  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

His  sense  of  this  has  had  hardly  time  to  form  itself 
into  speech,  so  near  is  '  going  on '  to  the  reality  of 
the  apprehension,  so  much  nearer  than  any  words  such 
as  movement  or  process  which  pre-suppose  or  connote 
a  conception.  The  mind  is  flooded  with  a  feeling  of 
the  unconscious  life  of  Nature,  and  the  thing  is  said  as 
it  is  felt.1 

This  which   Wordsworth  does  for  himself  here  he 


1  Professor  Raleigh's  discussion  of  this  poem  (Wordsworth, 
Edward  Arnold,  1903)  occurs  in  a  chapter  on  Poetic  Diction,  but  his 
words  are  not  sufficiently  directed  to  my  immediate  purpose  to 
allow  me  to  use  all  of  them  instead  of  my  own  :  *  Some  of  these 
alterations  have  happily  disappeared  from  the  definitive  edition  ; 
others  remain.  Thus  the  poem  on  Gipsies  originally  ended  with 
these  two  lines  : — 

"  The  silent  Heavens  have  goings-on  ; 

The  stars  have  tasks — but  these  have  none." 

'To  some  mind  or  other  the  word  "goings-on"  suggested  flippant 
associations,  and  the  lines  were  altered  thus  : — 

"  Life  which  the  very  stars  reprove 
As  on  their  silent  tasks  they  move  !  " 

Not  only  is  the  most  telling  word  suppressed  ;  there  is  a  more 
fundamental  change,  typical  of  many  changes  made  by  Wordsworth 
when  he  had  lost  touch  with  his  original  impressions.  The  bare 
contrast  of  the  earlier  poem  is  moralised.  The  strangeness  of  the 
simple  impression  is  lost  for  the  sake  of  a  most  impotent  didactic 
application.  The  poet,  after  a  day  of  crowded  and  changeful 
experience  under  the  open  sky,  returns  to  find  the  group  of  gypsies 
sitting  as  before  round  their  camp-fire.  The  winds  are  blowing  and 
the  clouds  moving,  so  that  the  little  knot  of  human  beings  seems  the 
only  stationary  thing  in  nature.  The  restless  jo*y  of  the  poet,  his 
fellow-feeling  with  the  mighty  activities  of  Nature,  breaks  out  in  a 
single  remonstrance :  — 

"  Oh  better  wrong  and  strife, 
Better  vain  deeds  and  evil  than  such  life  !  " 

Even  this  he  changed  when  his  sensibilities  had  been  crusted  over 
and  his  appetite  for  explicit  moral  teaching  increased  by  the  passage 
of  years  '  (pp.  98,  99). 


WORDSWORTH  97 

can  do  for  other  people  ;  or  rather,  because  the  people 
of  whom  he  speaks  are  merely  human,  he  continues  to 
do  this  for  himself  while  supposing  himself  in  a  variety 
of  situations.  For  example,  imagining  the  little 
country  girl  shut  up  in  the  network  of  poor  streets 
which  in  1797  made  the  City,  he  writes  this  : — 

*  At  the  corner  of  Wood  Street,  when  daylight  appears, 
Hangs  a  Thrush  that  sings  loud,  it  has  sung  for  three  years  ; 
Poor  Susan  has  passed  by  the  spot,  and  has  heard 
In  the  silence  of  morning  the  song  of  the  Bird. 

'Tis  a  note  of  enchantment ;  what  ails  her  ?     She  sees 
A  mountain  ascending,  a  vision  of  trees  ; 
Bright  volumes  of  vapour  through  Lothbury  glide, 
And  a  river  flows  on  through  the  vale  of  Cheapside. 

Green  pastures  she  views  in  the  midst  of  the  dale, 
Down  which  she  so  often  has  tripped  with  her  pail ; 
And  a  single  small  cottage,  a  nest  like  a  dove's, 
The  one  only  dwelling  on  earth  that  she  loves. 

She  looks,  and  her  heart  is  in  heaven :  but  they  fade, 
The  mist  and  the  river,  the  hill  and  the  shade  : 
The  stream  will  not  flow,  and  the  hill  will  not  rise, 
And  the  colours  have  all  passed  away  from  her  eyes.' 

The  opening  of  this  little  poem  might  be  used  as  an 
instance  of  what  is  meant  by  visualisation  : — 

'  Bright  volumes  of  vapour  through  Lothbury  glide, 
And  a  river  flows  on  through  the  vale  of  Cheapside.' 

'Seems,  madam!  nay,  it  is;  I  know  not  seems.' 
The  dream  is  superimposed  upon  the  reality.  Equally 
close  to  the  more  delicate  emotional  experience  is  the 
description  of  the  fading  vision  : — 

'  The  stream  will  not  flow,  and  the  hill  will  not  rise.' 

In  one's  bed  in  the  morning,  half  roused  from  a  dream 
and  trying  with  a  sleepy  persistence  to  recapture  the 

G 


98  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

images  that,  lately  distinct,  still  so  cloud  the  faculties 
as  to  make  them  impervious  to  waking,  who  has  not  felt 
his  whole  mind  surrendered  to  the  realisation  of  just 
this  inability? 

With  the  next  line  the  bare  day  is  with  us.  One 
has  been  sitting  in  the  concert  hall  listening  to  St. 
Cecilia's  harmony.  It  ceases,  and  the  instruments  are 
still.  One  is  conscious  of  a  visual  blank,  not  of  any- 
thing happening  but  of  something  having  ceased  to 
happen,  of  colours  that  have  gone  out,  and  that  is  the 
extent  of  one's  consciousness.  If  it  be  said  that  other 
people  besides  Wordsworth  could  have  written  the  last 
line  of  the  poem,  it  must  be  answered  they  would  have 
written  more. 

Similarly  in  the  poem  describing  the  lover's  visit  to 
Lucy's  cottage,  Wordsworth  is  content  with  the  bare 
statement  of  what  occurred.1  To  be  near  the  beloved  is 
an  important  occasion,  and  the  rider's  heart  is  tense  ; 
and  just  as  Charcot's  patient  kept  his  eye  fixed  on  the 
scintillating  ring  on  the  hypnotist's  finger,  so  Words- 
worth keeps  his  on  the  one  bright  spot  in  the  sky — the 
evening  moon.  The  concentration  of  the  mind  upon 
one  thought  allows  the  eye  to  concentrate  itself  upon 
one  thing,  indeed  makes  it  easily  a  victim  to  the 
hypnotic  point.  Lucy's  cottage  is  situated  on  a  hill, 


1  And  so  the  Edinburgh  Reviewer  in  1801  :  '  Love  and  the  fantasies 
of  lovers  have  afforded  an  ample  theme  to  poets  of  all  ages.  Mr. 
Wordsworth,  however,  has  thought  fit  to  compose  a  piece,  illustrat- 
ing this  subject  by  one  single  thought.  A  lover  trots  away  to  see 
his  mistress  one  fine  evening,  staring  all  the  way  at  the  moon  ;  when 
he  gets  to  her  door — 

"O  mercy  !  to  myself  I  cried 
If  Lucy  should  be  dead." 

And  there  the  poem  ends.'     An  unintentionally  good  criticism. 


WORDSWORTH  99 

and,  as  the  horse  climbs  the  slope,  the  moon  appears 
to  be  dropping  behind  the  small  building  that,  to  the 
rider  looking  upward,  is  the  highest  thing  against  the 
horizon.  There  comes  a  moment  when  the  cottage 
comes  directly  in  the  line  of  sight,  and  the  object  of 
the  physical  eyes  falls  out  of  vision.  The  mind  is 
conscious  of  a  sense  of  loss,  and  in  this  sense  of  loss 
is  involved  the  one  subject  of  Wordsworth's  thought. 

How  flat  all  this  is,  and  how  the  dissection  of  an 
emotional  state  destroys  its  power  of  contagion  !  Had 
Wordsworth  written  so,  he  would  have  made  himself 
plain  certainly,  but  would  have  wakened  no  responsive 
echo.  In  his  little  miracle  which,  for  want  of  a  better 
word,  we  call  a  poem,  the  fond  and  wayward  thought 
slides  into  us  as  it  came  to  the  lover,  and  we  experience 
the  same  unearthly  thrill.  Wordsworth  gives  us  the 
whole  conscious  experience  ;  what  he  does  not  give  us 
is  the  operation  of  the  mind  upon  that  experience  after 
it  has  ceased.1 


1  By  this  it  is,  of  course,  not  meant  that  Wordsworth's  poetry  is 
spontaneous,  or  that  he  expresses  the  emotion  immediately  he  has 
felt  it.  What  actually  happens  is  that  he  ponders  over  the  experi- 
ence till  he  is  able  to  get  back  to  it,  and  to  express  it  just  as  it 
came.  His  own  definition  of  poetry,  '  emotion  recollected  in  tran- 
quillity,' accurately  describes  his  manner  of  work.  He  has  to  have 
time  to  realise  what  he  felt.  What  he  does,  as  the  result  of  much 
meditation,  is  to  recapture  an  emotional  effect. 

It  is  interesting  to  remember  that  Tennyson  in  Maud  has 
imitated  the  sinking  feeling  in  this  *  Moon '  poem,  but  he  is  much 
farther  from  the  emotion  : — 

*  But  I  look'd,  and  round,  all  round  the  house  I  beheld 

The  death-white  curtain  drawn  ; 

Felt  a  horror  over  me  creep, 

Prickle  my  skin  and  catch  my  breath, 
Knew  that  the  death-white  curtain  meant  but  sleep, 
Yet  I  shudder'd  and  thought  like  a  fool  of  the  sleep  of  death.' 


ioo  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Perhaps  the  simplest  instance  is  in  '  The  Two  April 
Mornings.'  Matthew,  the  old  schoolmaster,  is  speaking 
of  the  first,  now/thirty  years  ago  : — 

4  Six  feet  in  earth  my  Emma  lay ; 

And  yet  I  loved  her  more, 
For  so  it  seemed,  than  till  that  day 
I  e'er  had  loved  before. 

And,  turning  from  her  grave,  I  met, 

Beside  the  churchyard  yew, 
A  blooming  Girl,  whose  hair  was  wet 

With  points  of  morning  dew. 

A  basket  on  her  head  she  bare  ; 

Her  brow  was  smooth  and  white  : 
To  see  a  child  so  very  fair, 

It  was  a  pure  delight ! 

No  fountain  from  its  rocky  cave 

E'er  tripped  with  foot  so  free  ; 
She  seemed  as  happy  as  a  wave 

That  dances  on  the  sea. 

There  came  from  me  a  sigh  of  pain 

Which  I  could  ill  confine  ; 
I  looked  at  her,  and  looked  again  : 

And  did  not  wish  her  mine  ! ' 

While  the  physical  impression  is  very  distinct,  the 
feeling  is  expressed  by  a  sigh  and  a  negation.  We 
know,  of  course,  Matthew's  reason.  One's  own 
offspring,  in  whom  courses  the  blood  that  warms 
one's  heart,  is  sui  generis :  one  can  be  reminded  of  a 
dead  beloved,  but,  as  it  is  said  in  France,  one  can  have 
but  one  mother.  But  a  course  of  reasoning  so  simple 
could  hardly  be  fully  absent  from  any  mind  ?  The 


Tennyson  was  the  most  perfect  of  imitators.  Echoes  of  Virgil, 
Theocritus,  Shakespeare,  add  no  discrepant  beauty  to  the  beauty 
which  is  his  own.  Yet  when  even  Tennyson  tries  to  imitate  Words- 
worth, one  remembers  Professor  Murray's  quotation,  *  it  does  some- 
how sound  like  twitterings.' 


WORDSWORTH  101 

truth  is  that  the  feeling  lies  behind  even  this  simple 
effort.  Matthew  is  conscious  only  of  an  absence  of 
desire  ;  his  fancy  for  the  beautiful  little  maiden,  so  like 
Emma,  does  not  reach  to  a  forgetfulness  of  his  loss. 

In  Wordsworth's  poems  we  get  near  the  first  move- 
ments of  the  heart,  and  we  may  truly  say  that  in  them 
we  deal  with  the  elements  of  poetry.  This  merit  alone 
would  have  made  him  the  most  poetical  of  poets,  but 
it  would  not  have  made  him  Wordsworth.  Alongside 
of  his  power  of  uncovering  the  breast,  his  power  of 
passively  recording  the  impression,  there  is  an  active 
faculty — the  faculty  of  sudden  vision.  That  is  to  say, 
there  is  not  only  the  thing  which  comes  directly  against 
the  sight,  but  what  else  the  thing  seen  makes  him 
glance  aside  to  see  ;  not  only  what  is  felt,  but  the 
responsive  activities  of  feeling. 

This  faculty  is  perhaps  not  as  frequently  employed. 
Certainly  it  is  not  always  to  be  found  in  conjunction 
with  the  other  ;  yet  it  is  often  so  found.  In  the  poem 
which  Wordsworth  wrote  on  the  daffodils,  he  describes 
himself  as  wandering  alone,  purposelessly,  the  intellec- 
tual energy  held  in  suspension  as  a  cloud  may  hold  its 
rain,  when  his  eyes  are  filled  with  the  sight  of  a  myriad 
daffodils  waving,  down  there  beside  the  lake,  the 
miracle  of  a  flower.  In  a  moment  he  is  awake,  and 
the  whole  miraculous  life  of  Nature  is  comprehended  in 
a  flash.  His  mind  jumps  from  the  brilliant  weeds  at 
his  feet  to  the  unnumbered  worlds  with  which  is  sown 
the  vault  of  heaven.  Miracle  answers  to  miracle,  and 
the  far  explains  the  near  : — 

'  Continuous  as  the  stars  that  shine 

And  twinkle  on  the  milky  way, 
They  stretched  in  never-ending  line 
Along  the  margin  of  a  bay. 


102  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

At  another  time  he  is  thinking  of  the  life  past  of  Lucy, 
how  much  apart  it  was,  how  modest  in  its  retirement ; 
and  as  he  thinks,  he  sees,  at  his  feet  and  in  the  zenith, 
the  unnoted  solitary  beauty  of  things  : — 

'  A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone 

Half  hidden  from  the  eye  ! 
— Fair  as  a  star,  when  only  one 
Is  shining  in  the  sky.' 

Often  as  I  have  read  the  tiny  poem,  it  is  always  a  fresh 
astonishment  to  find  that  flash  between  the  two  other 
verses,1  so  exclusively  human  in  their  sentiment  and 
apparently  so  sufficing,  so  much,  by  themselves,  exhaus- 
tive of  their  subject.  To  read  them  alone  and  without 
the  middle  one  is  to  be  conscious  of  a  poet  who  feels  his 
grief  so  elementally,  his  mind  has  room  for  no  other 
thought.  Here,  surely,  we  would  have  said,  is  what 
we  mean  when  we  speak  of  any  one  as  being  contained 
by  his  emotion. 

It  is  the  same  faculty  of  travelling  to  the  world's 
end  that  enables  him  to  enliven  his  village  story  of 
Ruth  with  the  lights  and  colours  of  the  West,  to  speak 
of  the  magnolia  spread 

4  High  as  a  cloud,  high  overhead,' 

or  to  see,  meeting  at  noontide,  beneath  his  yew-trees, 
the  shapes  that  make  up  man's  inward  dream. 


1 '  She  dwelt  among  the  untrodden  ways 

Beside  the  springs  of  Dove, 
A  Maid  whom  there  were  none  to  praise 
And  very  few  to  love. 

She  lived  unknown,  and  few  could  know 

When  Lucy  ceased  to  be  ; 
But  she  is  in  her  grave,  and,  oh, 

The  difference  to  me  ! ' 


WORDSWORTH  103 

In  speaking  of  his  '  Phantom  of  delight,'  his  mind 
dances  from  the  beauty  of  evening  to  that  of  morn  and 
spans  the  revolving  year  : — 

— -— ^ 

'  Her  eyes  as  stars  of  Twilight  fair  ; 
Like  Twilight's,  too,  her  dusky  hair, 
But  all  things  else  about  her  drawn 
From  May-time  and  the  cheerful  Dawn.' 

Arnold  has  spoken  of  Wordsworth's  '  healing  power.' 
This  power  to  soothe  we  all  find  in  his  poetry,  but  it 
is  not  due  to  those  triumphs  of  reality  or  imagination. 
The  opening  of  the  grave  which  is  man's  breast,  a 
freedom  of  imaginative  play  where  '  the  flashes  come 
and  go ' — these  have  power  to  arrest  the  mind,  not  to 
soothe  it.  What  soothes  in  Wordsworth's  poetry  is 
his  tone. 

Generally  a  lyric  is  consecrated  to  one  note.  Burns's 
lyrics  to  a  remarkable  degree  are  so,  and  it  is  true  of 
all  the  rest.  They  are  joyous  or  sad,  charged  with 
melancholy  or  with  ardour,  passionate  or  reflective  ; 
but  in  Wordsworth's  sedate  lyrics  the  feeling  is  often 
mingled,  and  the  shades  that  go  to  make  up  their 
twilight  indistinct.  The  manner  is  never  entirely  sad 
or  entirely  joyous.  And  this  song  of  '  serious  faith  and 
inward  glee,'  of  an  inner  happiness  that  remembers 
sorrow,  of  a  trust  in  the  mind  of  man  that  will  not  be 
cast  down,  this  curiously  blended  note  of  delight  and 
regret,  is  especially  Wordsworth's  own.  We  read  a 
happy  lyric  of  his  and  we  are  not  left  entirely  happy  ; 
we  read  a  poem  steeped  in  melancholy  and  we  are 
touched  with  an  inexplicable  joy.  The  story  of  the 
mountain  child  offering  milk  to  the  lamb,  whose  '  tail 
with  pleasure  shook,'  fades  into  the  heart  like  evening. 


io4  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Among  '  the  hills  where  echoes  play,'  there  intrudes 

'That  plaintive  cry  !  which  up  the  hill 
Comes  from  the  depth  of  Dungeon-Ghyll.' 

The  morning's  birth  frames  the  tragedy  of  the  Leech 
Gatherer  in  repose. 

These  lyrics,  written  under  the  influence  of  a  con- 
trariety of  sensations,  of  a  solemnness  which  permits 
of  gaiety,  and  distinguished  by  a 

4  melancholy  grace, 
Brought  from  a  pensive  though  a  happy  place,' 

leave  the  mind  in  a  state  of  various  or  divided  feeling, 
and  affect  as  no  other  lyrical  poetry  can.  Why  Words- 
worth alone  should  have  this  power  is  perhaps  best 
answered  by  saying  that  there  was  only  one  Words- 
worth, but  certain  it  is  that  these  poems  have  this 
effect ;  their  devout  happiness,  their  restrained  and 
perfect  grief,  touch  the  mind  in  a  manner  different 
from  the  noblest  work  of  other  poets.  Shakespeare 
can  move  us  to  laughter  or  to  tears  at  his  will,  but  he 
cannot  leave  the  impression  which  such  a  poem  as 
1  The  Solitary  Reaper '  does.  I  suppose  that  the  offices 
of  her  Church  will  produce  in  the  devotee  the  same 
kind  of  subdued  exaltation,  the  same  spirit  of  renewal 
won  from  sorrow.  Sunshine  and  shower,  the  varied 
colours  of  the  rainbow  arching  the  expectant  earth, 
this  is  the  very  breath  and  being  of  these  poems. 

And  yet,  constantly,  in  Wordsworth's  poetry  there 
is,  as  Mr.  Bradley  has  shown,  something  even 
deeper  than  this,  and  in  its  own  way  as  unique.  It 
is  his  profound  sense  of  the  illimitable  ;  and  this  itself 
is  based  on  a  basic  contact  with  reality,  a  deep  earnest- 
ness which  is  sensible,  and  which,  whatever  the  subject, 


WORDSWORTH  105 

keeps  its  grip.  Fantasy  does  not  attract  him  ;  he 
writes  nothing  formal,  and  even  when  he  praises  virtue 
he  speaks  of  what  he  knows. 

How  idle  usually  are  those  praises,  and  how  untrue 
to  our  own  knowledge  of  humanity.  One  puts  up  a 
formal  prayer  to  a  perfection  in  which  one  has  never 
troubled  seriously  to  believe,  and  Love  and  Fate  and 
Duty  are  the  most  frequent  terms  in  the  vocabulary  of 
the  fool.  When  one  opens  an  Ode  to  Duty  one  expects 
an  idle  dithyramb,  but  Wordsworth's  Ode  to  Duty 
bristles  with  observation,  and  moral  experiences  are  as 
accurately  distinguished  as  the  days  of  the  week.  It 
speaks  from  the  ascertained  fact.  The  comprehensive- 
ness of  the  law  of  Duty  as  also  the  lightening  of  the 
moral  stress  which  results  from  obedience  to  it — 

'  Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  their  beds 
And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads,' 

are  no  more  vividly  realised  than  the  frailty  of  man. 
The  '  weight  of  chance  desires,'  the  '  confidence  of 
reason,'  these  are  no  words  of  course.  The  youthful, 
however,  have  not  our  anxiety  ;  they  have  not  known 
what  it  is  to  be  astray,  and  there  is  a  natural  human 
kindness  in  the  young  and  untried  that  prompts  to 
good  offices  : — 

4  There  are  who  ask  not  if  thine  eye 
Be  on  them  ;  who,  in  love  and  truth, 
Where  no  misgiving  is,  rely 
Upon  the  genial  sense  of  youth.' 

This  is  true,  and  nearer  to  the  fact  of  young  life  than 
either  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  or  Rousseau's  absolute 
opposition  to  it.  Much  of  our  predisposition  to  serve 
the  self,  the  young  share  in  common  with  us.  What 


106  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

they  possess,  and  we  do  not,  is  their  pleasedness  with 
things,  from  which  there  overflows  a  pleasantness  ;  but 
it  is  useless  to  attempt  otherwise  to  define  what 
Wordsworth  has  defined  already. 

4  The  Happy  Warrior '  extorts  the  same  admiring 
wonder,  and  for  the  same  qualities.1  Wordsworth,  in 
defining  his  ideal  human  being,  keeps  his  finger  on 
the  list  of  human  temptations.  Good  men  there  have 
been  without  number  who  have  failed  in  life's  battle 
from  their  inability,  in  the  heat  of  strife,  to  *  keep  the 
law  in  calmness  made.'  Brave  men,  whom  '  no  shape 
of  danger  can  dismay,'  have  been  seduced  from  the 
conflict  by  cherishing  the  *  tender  happiness '  of  their 
home.  And  yet  without  the  love  of  others  to  rely  on, 
there  is  no  support  in  difficulty.  The  laurel  is  not 
plucked  by  a  narrow  nature,  and  at  least  of  a  martyr  it 
may  be  said  that  he  is 

'  More  brave  for  this,  that  he  hath  much  to  love.' 

A  poet  who  can  write  on  such  subjects  without 
loosening  his  hold  on  the  facts  is  very  close  to  the 
reality  of  life.  And  it  is  on  this  deep  consciousness 
of  life's  reality  that  Wordsworth  builds  his  conscious- 
ness of  a  reality  beyond  it.  Man  will  never  be  real  if 
he  is  not  real  here.  If  he  is  real,  for  him  there  may  be 
another  reality.  Man's  life,  if  it  is  not  related  to  the 
universal  life,  is  nothing — a  dream  without  a  dreamer, 
the  mere  shadow  of  a  shade.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
full  consciousness  of  the  reality  of  the  life  of  man 
involves  its  relation  to  an  ultimate  reality.  On  the 
nature  and  meaning  of  any  individual  life  Wordsworth 
had  brooded  long  ;  and  so  intensely  does  he  realise  it 

1  Wordsworth  himself  described  it,  in  conversation  with  Miss 
Martineau,  as  '  a  chain  of  extremely  valooable  thoughts.' 


WORDSWORTH  107 

that  he  never  realises  it  alone.  The  limited  glows  with 
so  intense  a  light  that  it  spreads  its  rays  into  the 
illimitable.  His  Michael,  his  Leech  Gatherer,  his  dead 
Brother,  his  favoured  Being  gazing  from  the  shore  of 
Esthwaite  on  a  beautiful  prospect,  his  Cumberland 
Beggar,  his  Peter  Bell,  his  Dion,  his  dead  stag  or 
guarding  dog,  the  statued  Newton,  the  friendless  man 
in  '  Guilt  and  Sorrow '  who  on  must  pace, 

*  perchance  'till  night  descend, 
Where'er  the  dreary  roads  their  bare  white  lines  extend,' 

are  not  more  '  each  distinct  and  in  his  place '  than  they 
carry  with  them,  each  and  all,  a  reference  to  something 
beyond,  and  this  something  is  partly  the  general  life 
of  Nature  and  partly  the  mystery  of  life.  Those  figures 
owe  their  supernatural  dignity  to  Wordsworth's  con- 
sciousness that  they  are  not  bounded  by  their  own 
beings,  but  are,  in  truth,  unlimited  and  a  part  of  all. 

A  strange  thrill  comes  to  us  in  these  poems  that  are 
so  full  of  a  susceptibility  to  the  mysterious,  and  that 
see  in  a  pedlar  the  shadow  of  the  whole.  Nature,  too, 
to  a  mind  of  this  character,  whispers  strange  secrets. 
The  gross  palpable  shimmers  in  a  haze,  and  a  thorn, 
4  the  oak  beside  the  door,'  a  convicting  mountain,  the 
waste  places  and  'the  one  blasted  tree,'  seem  about  to 
become  animate  and  to  disclose  themselves  a  spirit  or 
a  voice. 

No  graver  tribute  has  been  paid  to  Wordsworth  in 
our  generation  than  Mr.  Bradley's1  analysis  of  this 


1  Oxford  Lectures  on  Poetry,  'Wordsworth,'  where  Mr.  Bradley 
speaks  (Hart-leap  Well)  of  'this  feeling  of  the  presence  of  mysterious 
inviolable  powers  behind  the  momentary  powers  of  hard  pleasure 
and  empty  pride.'  He  gives  as  instances  of  the  side  of  Wordsworth's 
genius,  adverted  to  above,  the  Leech  Gatherer,  and  from  the 


io8  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

side  of  his  genius  ;  for  it  is  not  a  side,  it  is  the  very 
kernel  of  his  poetry,  and  supplies  the  reason  why  it  is 
sufficing. 

A  lady  once  said  to  me  that  what  struck  her  most 
about  Wordsworth's  poems  was  their  reminiscent 
quality,  or,  to  be  explicit,  that  Wordsworth's  poetry 
has  the  power,  more  than  that  of  others,  of  reviving  in 
us  recollections  of  our  youth  ;  one  lays  down  the 
volume  at  a  phrase  and  sees  again  one's  nursery  and 
vanished  faces.  The  explanation  of  this  is  not  obvious. 
It  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  fact,  taken  by  itself,  that 
Wordsworth  writes  peculiarly  often  about  children,  for 
other  poets  have  done  this  without  producing  his 
effect. 

The  reason  is,  I  think,  Wordsworth's  singular  facility 
and  felicity  in  bringing  us  in  contact  with  the  emotion 
as  felt ;  that  is  to  say,  as  we  ourselves  came  in  contact 
with  it  when  we  were  young.  People  of  middle  age 
have  lost  this  capacity  of  youth.  One  hears  of  the 
decease  of  a  friend,  and  before  one  has  had  time  to 
realise  one's  impression  of  personal  loss,  the  intellect 
is  busy  relating  this  one  death  to  the  process  of  things. 


Prelude,  Book  II.,  the  convicting  mountain  (the  stealing  of  the  prey 
of  the  snares  is  a  parallel  passage,  and  both  speak  to  a  common 
experience  of  childhood — the  voice  of  conscience  becoming  animate 
in  inanimate  things) ;  Prelude,  Book  IV.,  the  old  soldier  ;  Prelude, 
Book  VII.,  the  London  beggar  ;  Prelude,  Book  xii.,  the  distinctness 
of  recollected  impressions  on  a  mind  strung  to  a  high  pitch  by 
sorrow. 

'  The  single  sheep,  and  the  one  blasted  tree.' 

The  Arab  riding  into  the  distance,  Book  v.,  is  also  an  instance  of 
Mr.  Bradley's.  In  the  same  essay  Mr.  Bradley  speaks  of  the  con- 
nection of  this  feeling  of  infinity  and  the  endless  passing  of  limits 
with  Wordsworth's  love  of  wandering,  wanderers,  and  high  roads. 


WORDSWORTH  109 

One  is  praised  and,  before  one  has  time  to  feel  a 
delighted  glow,  one  realises  the  relative  unimportance 
of  all  possible  praise  and  all  possible  achievement. 
One  is  out  on  a  spring  afternoon,  lying  on  the  Surrey 
heather,  watching  a  pigeon  sailing  above  the  faint 
blush  of  the  wood  that  the  hill  carries  to  a  sky  of 
mauve.  One  is  conscious  of  no  ecstasy.  There  float 
in  the  mind  a  dozen  pictures  of  remembered  scenes.  In 
later  life  every  experience  that  comes  to  us  is  harmonised 
by  memory  or  by  experience,  is  generalised  before  it 
strikes. 

But  in  early  youth  how  different !  A  sharp  reproof, 
a  box  of  chocolate,  a  playmate  on  the  sands,  the  death 
of  a  canary,  the  expectation  when  the  black-gowned 
clergyman  stopped,  after  giving  out  his  text,  before 
beginning  his  sermon,  one's  drowsy  ageing  neighbour 
in  the  Scottish  church  ;  how  real  it  was,  and  all  we 
needed  to  be  Wordsworths  was  his  power  of  expression. 
As  we  felt  then,  Wordsworth  speaks,  and  when  he 
speaks  the  dusty  interval  is  gone — 

'  For  the  same  sound  is  in  our  ears 
Which  in  those  days  we  heard.' 

Children,  though,  of  course,  they  express  their  feelings 
very  broadly  and  crudely, — and  besides,  nobody  marks 
them, — have  the  same  faculty  of  immediacy  of  feeling 
that  Wordsworth  has.  Their  minds  are  swept  with 
each  separate  emotion,  joy,  pain,  fear,  grief,  perceive  it 
as  it  is,  and  have  room  for  nothing  else.1  It  is,  there- 


1  This  is  the  reason  too  why  children  do  not  care  for  Words- 
worth's poems,  and  see  nothing  in  them.  To  them  what  Wordsworth 
talks  about  is  quite  familiar,  and  he  merely  voices  their  sensations. 
Poor  Susan  is  no  miracle  to  a  child — on  the  contrary,  a  bare  account 
of  what  is  constantly  happening  ;  and  though  the  child  does  not 


i  io  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

fore,  his  instinct  for  an  affinity  that  leads  Wordsworth 
to  speak  so  often  of  them.  Their  one-ideaedness,  their 
persistency  in  an  idea  when  formed,  their  capacity  for 
concentration,  the  poignancy  of  their  joy  or  absorption 
in  their  grief,  the  way  in  which  they  are  *  taken  up ' 
with  what  they  are  doing,  this  made  them  his  fellow- 
citizens  in  a  land  peopled  by  foreigners  who  never  feel. 
He  has  said  the  wisest  and  most  beautiful  things  about 
children,  as  also  the  most  memorable  things  about  that 
death  in  us  when  our  youth  is  dead. 

In  the  great  Ode  he  is  indeed  hampered  by  a  false 
philosophy  ;  but  so  keen  is  his  eye  for  the  facts  of 
child-life  that  it  is  starred  with  phrases  that  describe 
it  as  it  has  never  been  described. 

As  we  know,  the  explicit  teaching  of  the  Ode  is 
fanciful  j1  it  deals  with  the  belief  in  pre-existence,  a 


know  this,  this  is  the  reason  why  it  is  not  excited  by  the  poem. 
Tennyson's  Idylls  are  the  children's  paradise  ;  they  are  as  strange  to 
them  as  Poor  Susan  is  to  us  ;  they  speak  of  a  magic  world.  Poor 
Susan  speaks  to  us  of  what  we  have  come  to  know  as  the  only  magic 
in  the  world,  the  magical  sensations  of  youth. 

1  Arnold  in  his  Essay  on  Wordsworth  has  a  pregnant  hint  on  this 
subject,  but  he  dismisses  Wordsworth  rather  airily,  and  does  not 
seek  for  the  amount  of  actual  truth  that  is  the  secret  of  the  Ode's 
permanent  attraction.  What  pleases  the  highest  minds  can  never 
be  merely  '  a  play  of  fancy.' 

'Even  the  "intimations"  of  the  famous  Ode,  those  corner-stones 
of  the  supposed  philosophic  system  of  Wordsworth, — the  idea  of  the 
high  instincts  and  affections  coming  out  in  childhood,  testifying  of  a 
divine  home  recently  left,  and  fading  away  as  our  life  proceeds, — 
this  idea,  of  undeniable  beauty  as  a  play  of  fancy,  has  itself  not  the 
character  of  poetic  truth  of  the  best  kind  ;  it  has  no  real  solidity. 
The  instinct  of  delight  in  Nature  and  her  beauty  had,  no  doubt, 
extraordinary  strength  in  Wordsworth  himself  as  a  child.  But  to 
say  that  universally  this  instinct  is  mighty  in  childhood,  and  tends 
to  die  away  afterwards,  is  to  say  what  is  extremely  doubtful.  In 
many  people,  perhaps  with  the  majority  of  educated  persons,  the 


WORDSWORTH  in 

belief  which,  like  all  other  beliefs,  is  incapable  of 
proof,  but  which,  unlike  many  beliefs,  is  no  part  of  the 
common  life  of  the  mind. 

Wordsworth  had  observed  that  the  child  takes  a 
rapturous  delight  in  the  beauty  of  earth,  which  is 
unknown,  at  least  in  its  rapture,  to  the  grown  man.  He 
had  also  observed  that  the  child  is  not  oppressed  by 
the  notion  of  death,  but,  on  the  contrary,  assumes  that 
it  itself  and  its  surroundings  will  continue  as  they  are  ; 
has,  in  fact,  the  greatest  difficulty  in  accepting  the  idea 
of  Finis,  and  will  even  on  occasion  persist  in  suppos- 
ing its  dead  companions  to  be  not  dead  but  translated, 
still  somewhere  alive  and  in  a  sense  still  with  it. 
Wordsworth,  moreover,  had  observed  that  always  at 
the  period  of  adolescence  there  is  a  fierce  struggle  on 
the  part  of  every  youth  to  resist  the  conclusion,  at 
length  irrefutable,  that  he  himself  must  perish.  Other 
people  die,  it  is  true,  but  I  shall  not  die.  I  shall  be 
translated  in  a  chariot  of  fire.  The  Judgment-day  will 


love  of  Nature  is  nearly  imperceptible  at  ten  years  old,  but  strong 
and  operative  at  thirty.  In  general  we  may  say  of  these  high 
instincts  of  early  childhood,  the  base  of  the  alleged  systematic 
philosophy  of  Wordsworth,  what  Thucydides  says  of  the  early 
achievements  of  the  Greek  race  : — "  It  is  impossible  to  speak  with 
certainty  of  what  is  so  remote  ;  but  from  all  that  we  can  really 
investigate,  I  should  say  that  they  were  no  very  great  things."' 

This  is,  of  course,  true  if  we  mean  by  '  love  of  Nature'  what  we 
commonly  understand  by  it.  The  fact  of  child-life  on  which  Words- 
worth is  entitled  to  remark  is  not  in  this  sense  a  love  of  Nature  at  all, 
the  love  of  Nature  known  to  the  mature  mind,  but  rather,  a  delight  in 
'Earth,'  a  satisfiedness  with  the  mortal  condition  (because  not 
realised  to  be  mortal)  and  its  natural  setting.  The  child  is  delighted 
with  life,  and  is  very  easily  irritated  by  any  cessation  of  activity. 
I  have  seen  a  child  smack  a  ball  because  it  wouldn't  bounce  high 
enough.  But  as  long  as  it  continues  to  bounce  all  is  well.  Life 
laughs  with  surrounding  life. 


ii2  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

come  before  my  term  ;  at  least  somehow,  in  some 
manner,  in  a  world  that  perishes,  I  shall  be  persistent. 
This  exception  made  finally  in  favour  of  oneself,  for  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  others  die,  sets  in  opposition 
one's  own  will  to  live  and  the  perishableness  of 
others,  an  opposition  which  one  attempts  to  resolve 
by  a  crude  idealism.  These  others  who  die,  they 
are  part  of  my  dream.  I  become  conscious  of  the 
shadowy  nature  of  a  world  in  which  range  change 
and  decay.  But  the  material  world  returns,  and  when 
the  mind  is  asleep  I  come  out  of  my  dream,  only, 
however,  to  slide  back  into  it  with  recurrent  persistence 
whenever  my  inner  life  returns.  My  real  life,  the  life 
of  my  attentive  mind,  is  occupied  with 

'obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things, 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishings.' 

At  this  period  the  individual  life  is  paramount,  and 
the  material  world  unreal.  As  we  grow  older  we 
lose  this  sense  of  superiority,  and  the  world  in  our 
habitual  mind  is  greater  than  ourselves.  There  is,  in 
Wordsworth's  words,  a  '  subjugation  of  an  opposite 
character/1  To  the  ordinary  gross  citizen  what  he 
can  see,  feel,  and  handle  is  the  touchstone  of  reality. 

These  are  the  observed  facts.  I  do  not  think  there 
can  be  any  doubt  about  them,  but  Wordsworth  pro- 
ceeds to  invent  a  theory  to  account  for  them.  Before, 


1  Wordsworth's  own  words  are  as  follows :  '  Nothing  was  more 
difficult  for  me  in  childhood  than  to  admit  the  notion  of  death  as  a 
state  applicable  to  my  own  being.  I  have  said  elsewhere, 

"  A  simple  child, 
That  lightly  draws  its  breath, 
And  feels  its  life  in  every  limb, 
What  should  it  know  of  death  !  " 


WORDSWORTH  113 

however,  discussing  this  theory,  it  is  necessary  to  say 
that,  in  paraphrasing,  I  have  relied,  and  purposely 
relied,  on  his  long  introductory  note  to  the  Ode,  and  not 
on  the  Ode  itself.  In  the  paraphrase  it  will  be  noticed 
that  the  experiences  of  which  I  speak,  and  of  which 
Wordsworth  speaks  in  his  introductory  note,  extend 
over  a  considerable  period  of  time.  They  are  the 
account  of  the  process  of  the  mind  from  childhood  to 
adolescence,  and  from  adolescence  to  maturity.  The 
rapturous  delight  in  earth  is  known  to  a  child  of  six  ; 
the  crude  idealism  to  a  youth  of  sixteen,  and  dates  from 
the  moment  when  the  youth  is  first  faced  with  the  cer- 
tain apprehension  of  his  own  decease.  Wordsworth 
himself  in  his  note  does  not  attempt,  as  I  understand 
him,  (he  says,  'when  going  to  school,')  to  date  this 
idealism  earlier  than  his  early  teens,  and  of  all  youths 
Wordsworth  was  the  soonest  mature.  In  the  poem, 
however,  this  strictness  of  chronology,  which  is  essential 
to  the  truth  of  the  observations,  is  by  no  means 


But  it  was  not  so  much  from  feelings  of  animal  vivacity  that  my 
difficulty  came  as  from  a  sense  of  the  indomitableness  of  the  Spirit 
within  me.  I  used  to  brood  over  the  stories  of  Enoch  and  Elijah, 
and  almost  to  persuade  myself  that,  whatever  might  become  of 
others,  I  should  be  translated,  in  something  of  the  same  way,  to 
Heaven.  With  a  feeling  congenial  to  this,  I  was  often  unable  to 
think  of  external  things  as  having  external  existence,  and  I  com- 
muned with  all  that  I  saw  as  something  not  apart  from,  but  inherent 
in,  my  own  immaterial  nature.  Many  times  while  going  to  school 
have  1  grasped  at  a  wall  or  tree  to  recall  myself  from  this  abyss  of 
idealism  to  the  reality.  At  that  time  I  was  afraid  of  such  processes. 
In  later  periods  of  life  I  have  deplored,  as  we  all  have  reason  to  do, 
a  subjugation  of  an  opposite  character,  and  have  rejoiced  over  the 
remembrances,  as  is  expressed  in  the  lines — 

"  obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things, 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishings,"'  etc. 

H 


n4  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

preserved.  All  these  experiences  are  spoken  of 
loosely,  as  if  they  might  be  those  of  the  actual  child, 
and  this  adds  a  difficulty  of  interpretation.  Moreover, 
this  looseness  is  a  vital  defect  when  Wordsworth 
points  to  these  experiences  as  a  proof  of  pre- 
existence. 

These  experiences,  he  says,  belong  to  the  child  and 
not  to  the  man  ;  they  are  more  spiritual  than  the  man's, 
and  if  the  human  being,  at  the  moment  of  its  emer- 
gence, is  in  its  most  spiritual  state,  it  must  have  brought 
its  spirituality  with  it ;  those  '  clouds  of  glory '  must 
trail  from  a  former  spiritual  life. 

But  this  argument  immediately  dissolves  when  we 
reflect  that  the  experiences  of  which  Wordsworth  is 
speaking  are  in  no  sense  the  experiences  of  a  child, 
and,  so  far  from  being  experiences  of  first  contact,  are 
experiences  gradually  and  successively  evolved  through 
a  long  series  of  years  by  the  individual's  contact  with 
life  ;  the  most  spiritual  of  them,  moreover,  (I  mean  the 
crude  idealism  of  the  youth  of  sixteen),  the  one  on 
which  Wordsworth  chiefly  relies,  being  the  last  to 
evolve. 

The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  these  experiences  are 
not  spiritual  at  all,  and  Wordsworth's  fond  thesis  that 
the  child  is  more  spiritual  than  the  man  is  the  exact 
contrary  of  the  fact.  The  child  does  take  a  more 
rapturous  delight  in  earth  than  its  elders,  because,  for  it, 
earth  is  not  touched  with  decay.  How  could  it  not 
take  a  rapturous  delight  in  earth  thus  seen  ?  The 
procession  of  the  seasons,  the  unchanging  faces  of  our 
friends,  the  body  that  never  reminds  us  of  its  existence, 
bones  as  supple  as  a  twig,  sight,  sense,  taste  and 
sound  thronging  and  exhaustless  in  their  change,  the 


WORDSWORTH  115 

mother  ever  young  ;  what  further  Paradise  is  to  be 
imagined  in  Heaven  when  all  things  are  renewed  ? 
In  the  child's  world  there  is  no  death  ;  the  flame  bubbles 
without  consuming  coal,  and  the  same  bird  sings  every 
Spring. 

It  is  true,  also,  that  the  youth  resists  the  realisation 
of  death,  not  knowledge  of  it  (that  he  acquires  almost 
at  once),  but  realisation  of  it  as  a  fact  for  him,  and  that 
he  would  sell  the  reality  of  the  Universe  to  preserve 
his  bright  life  and  escape  the  law  of  all.  The  actual 
child  accepts  its  surroundings  with  extraordinary  com- 
posure, and  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  is  only  when 
the  child  is  in  process  of  becoming  a  man,  when  it 
begins  to  think,  as  in  Wordsworth's  case  it  began  far 
sooner  than  usual,  that  questions  arise.  They  arise 
with  all  of  us,  and  when  they  arise,  be  it  early  or  late, 
our  childhood  is  past.  What  was  accepted  as  stable  is 
no  longer  accepted  ;  the  world  becomes  unreal,  and 
when  the  '  victim '  has  passed  through  this  trial  and 
acquiesced  in  his  doom,  his  surroundings  are  no 
longer  what  they  were.1  As  men  we  are  in  a  prison- 
house,  because  as  youths  we  have  tried  to  escape  from 
it.  '  The  glory  and  the  freshness  of  a  dream '  has 
passed  away  from  earth  because  we  can  no  longer 
believe  that  here  we  are  to  remain.  All  this  happens, 
but  it  does  not  happen  because  the  child  is  more 
spiritual  than  the  man,  but  because  it  is  less  spiritual  ; 
because  in  its  animal  vivacity  and  its  insouciance  it 
relates  itself  to  no  other  life  than  earth's.  It  is  Death 
and  Death  alone,  and  the  conviction  of  it,  that  creates 


1 '  The  Clouds  that  gather  round  the  setting  sun 
Do  take  a  sober  colouring  from  an  eye 
That  hath  kept  watch  o'er  man's  mortality.' 


ii6  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

an  apprehension  of  the  spiritual,1  and  a  being  hunger- 
ing for  a  reality  behind  the  seen.  The  child  puts  its 
trust  in  an  illusion  and  is  happy.  The  man,  trembling 
on  the  edge  of  an  infinity,  weeps  for  what  is  gone,  but 
because  he  knows  of  that  infinity  he  is  man. 

Something  less  than  justice,2  then,  is  done  to  our 
spiritual  nature  in  the  '  Intimations,'  and  part  of  the 
poem,  a  very  small  part,  is  occupied  in  explicitly 
preaching  a  doctrine  which  is  not  only  fanciful  but 
derogatory  to  human  dignity.  These  portions  the 
world  has,  in  part,  cheerfully  forgotten,  or  remembers 
only  by  attaching  another  meaning  and  accepting  them 
as  a  testimonial  to  childhood. 

What  does  remain,  and  remains  imperishably,  is  the 
description  of  the  first  awaking  rapture  to  the  joy  of 
Earth,  and  the  even  more  beautiful  description  of  its 
passing,  of  the  sorrow  which  is  stirred  in  us  when  we 
regard  the  beauty  of  what  was  once  our  imperishable 
home.  A  poet  may  preach  a  doctrine  we  must  dismiss, 
and  say  things  we  cannot  forget.  It  is  because  the 
things  he  says  are  true. 

In  Wordsworth's  Nature  poetry  there  is  initially  a 
similar  difficulty ;  the  doctrine  he  preaches  about 
Nature  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  false.  In  representing 
Nature  as  in  basic  sympathy  with  man,  as  a  guide  and 
instructress,  in  conforming  one's  life  to  whom  one  may 

1  Cp.  Meredith  in  '  Youth  in  Memory'  : 

'To  feel  that  heaven  must  we  that  hell  sound  through.' 

2  Some  justice  is  done  towards  the  close — 

'rather  find 

Strength  in  what  remains  behind,' 

but  it  is  inadequate.  To  do  full  justice,  the  process  of  the  poem 
would  have  had  to  be  an  ascent,  not  a  descent.  In  fact,  the  idea  of  a 
*  Fall '  is  just  as  fallacious  for  the  individual  as  for  the  race. 


WORDSWORTH  117 

become  more  humane,  he  is  at  radical  issue  with 
scientific  fact.  And  this  divergence  is  his  own  inven- 
tion. He  did  not  learn  it,  any  more  than  he  learnt  his 
doctrine  of  pre-existence,  from  the  wandering  current  of 
Rousseauism.  He  added  both  to  Rousseau's  compara- 
tively simple  doctrines  of  original  virtue  and  natural 
peace.  Rousseau  has  no  theories  about  inanimate 
Nature  ;  his  love  of  her  is  merely  his  protest  against 
the  eighteenth-century  preference  of  urban  to  rural 
man.  He  loves  Nature  because  she  is  free,  quiet,  and 
full  of  variety  ;  because,  at  Les  Charmettes  or  The 
Hermitage,  he  can  escape  from  the  city.1  In  contra- 
distinction to  the  eighteenth  century,  he  loves  her 
just  because  she  is  uncultivated,  and  has  not,  like  a 
Dutch  garden,  been  taught  to  behave.  He  finds  her 
a  place  in  which  he  can  dream  his  dreams  of  the 
untainted  individual,  and  suppose  himself  to  enjoy 
that  state  of  Nature  which  existed  before  politics  and 
houses.  Nor  is  he  a  devotee  of  the  beauties  of  Nature 
for  themselves  ;  the  periwinkle  is  dear  to  him  because 
it  reminds  him  of  a  past  and  dear  episode  ;  he  has  no 
special  fondness  for  the  '  tall  and  gloomy  rock,'  though 
he  likes  it  in  its  place.  In  short,  as  Lord  Morley  has 
pointed  out,  he  is  a  virtuoso  in  landscape  who  likes  the 
confusion,  the  mixture,  a  soft  smiling  foreground  with 


1  '  I  was  so  tired  of  fine  rooms,  fountains,  artificial  groves  and 
flower-beds,  and  the  still  more  tiresome  people  who  displayed  all 
these  ;  I  was  so  worn  out  with  pamphlets,  card-playing,  music,  silly 
jokes,  stupid  airs,  great  suppers,  that  as  I  spied  a  poor  hawthorn 
copse,  a  hedge,  a  farmstead,  a  meadow,  as  in  passing  through  a 
hamlet  I  snuffed  the  odour  of  a  good  chervil  omelette,  as  I  heard  from 
a  distance  the  rude  refrain  of  the  shepherds'  songs,  I  used  to  wish  at 
the  devil  the  whole  tale  of  rouge  and  furbelows.' — Confessions :  passage 
translated  by  Lord  Morley. 


n8  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

trees,  leading  to  a  background  occupied  by  hills.  Not 
in  any  Wordsworthian  sense  a  priest  of  Nature, 
Rousseau  turns  to  her  for  relief  and  calm.  This 
was,  according  to  Arthur  Young,  to  set  the  fashion  in 
country-houses,  or  in  our  more  hurried  conceptions,  to 
be  a  week-ender. 

What  is  new  in  Wordsworth  is  his  philosophy  of 
Nature.  His  exceptional  fondness  for  those  scenes 
which  are  especially  solitary  and  grand,  and  in  which 
man  feels  himself  alone  with  the  Universe,  was  his 
own.  The  assumption,  underlying  all  he  writes,  that 
Nature's  life  beats  responsive  to  human  life,  was  not 
taught  him  by  any  one. 

But  this  poetry  of  Wordsworth's  brings  a  new  and 
strange  comfort  to  us,  and  the  joy  we  take  in  it,  even 
the  best  informed  among  us,  is  so  deep  and  so  per- 
sistent that  it  cannot  be  due  to  its  falsity,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  must  be  traceable  to  an  inner  truth.  In  what 
way,  then,  can  we  say  that  a  doctrine  or  philosophy  of 
Nature,  which  is  openly  opposed  to  what  we  know 
about  the  world,  is  true  ?  This  question  for  a  long  time 
troubled  me.  There  is,  of  course,  one  obvious  answer, 
and  once  it  satisfied  my  mind. 

This,  at  least,  is  certain,  that  as  much  as  Wordsworth's 
doctrine  is  opposed  to  objective  fact,  it  is  in  consonance 
with  subjective  fact.  Though  Nature  is  not  in  sympathy 
with  man,  man  believes  she  is.  It  is  his  unconscious 
habit  so  to  think,  and  what  Wordsworth  says  of  Nature 
is  true  of  what  man  feels  about  Nature.  It  is  true  for 
the  imagination  ;  it  is  what  we  call  poetic  truth.  The 
sun  seems  to  rise  and  fall,  and  therefore  it  is  more 
truthful,  and  less  of  a  shock,  to  speak  of  the  setting  sun 
than  of  the  turning  earth.  Middlesex  turned  away 


WORDSWORTH  119 

from  the  sun,  the  shadows  lengthened,  it  was  night. 
This  reads  very  affectedly,  and  is  not  an  accurate 
or  truthful  record  of  what  any  one  feels. 

The  weakness  of  this  argument,  however,  is  that  we 
do  not,  as  modern  men,  feel  that  Nature  sympathises 
with  us  in  the  same  constant  and  unvarying  manner 
that  we  feel  the  sun  falls.  If  the  instance  were  perfect 
it  would  suffice,  but  it  is  not  perfect.  It  is  imperfect 
in  two  ways :  in  the  way  stated  about  our  casual 
feeling,  and  in  a  further  and  contrary  way.  We 
know,  when  we  say  the  sun  falls,  that  it  does  not 
fall,  that  to  say  it  falls  is  simply  a  manner  of  speech. 
We  do  not  know  when  we  say  Nature  sympathises 
with  us  that  she  does  not  sympathise.  We  do  not 
know  that  to  say  she  sympathises  is  merely  a  manner 
of  speech.  That  is  not  an  accurate  account  of  what 
happens  in  our  minds.  What  happens  in  our  minds, 
when  Wordsworth  tells  us  that  Nature  sympathises, 
is  that  we  are  troubled.  We  do  not  know  that  she 
does,  but  we  are  by  no  means  as  certain  that  she 
does  not  as  we  are  certain  that  the  sun  is  comparatively 
stationary.  The  amount  of  subjective  truth  in  the 
two  instances  is  different ;  and  the  amount  of  sub- 
jective truth  in  Wordsworth's  doctrine  does  not 
explain,  at  all  adequately,  what  we  feel  about  its 
inner  truth. 

Nor  will  any  other  mechanical  explanation  of  our 
half  assent  quite,  satisfy  us.  It  may  be  said,  of  course, 
that  while  Wordsworth's  doctrine  of  a  sympathising 
Nature  is  opposed  to  what  we  know  of  scientific  fact, 
we  do  know  that  there  is  a  correspondent  alteration. 
Nature  is  not  affected  by  the  moods  of  man,  but  man 
is  affected  by  the  moods  of  Nature.  The  day  is  not 


120  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

dreary  because  I  am  sad,  but  I  am  miserable  without 
the  sun.  June  is  not  June  because  people  wed,  but 
they  wed  because  it  is  June.  This  is  true,  but  to 
explain  Wordsworth's  philosophy  of  Nature  by  saying 
it  is  a  truth  stated  the  wrong  way  round  is  a  child's 
trick. 

The  real  explanation  is  much  wider,  and  embraces 
all  these  attempted  answers.  What  Wordsworth's 
Nature  poetry  emphasises  is  the  intimate  connection 
between  Nature's  life  and  our  own.  When  all  is  said, 
we  are  human  because  we  can  read  Nature,  and  we 
interpret  everything  in  her  terms.  Nature  does  *  enter 
into  mysterious  and  wonder-working  union  with  the 
spirit  of  man.'1  She  does  speak  to  us  and  we  speak 
her  tongue.  This  Universe  is  our  home.  '  Man  is 
placed  in  the  centre  of  things,  and  a  ray  of  relation 
passes  from  every  other  being  to  him.'  We  make 
use  of  everything  in  Nature,  the  tree  and  the  *  earth 
bone '  to  build  houses,  the  flax  to  make  us  clothes. 
'  Words  are  signs  of  natural  facts.  Right  means 
straight,  wrong  means  twisted.'  .  .  .  <  It  is  not  words 
only  that  are  emblematic,  it  is  things  which  are  em- 
blematic.' '  Every  natural  fact  is  a  symbol  of  some 
spiritual  fact.'  'Light  and  darkness  are  familiar  ex- 
pressions for.  knowledge  and  ignorance.'  From  Nature 
also  we  do  gain  a  reinforcement  of  moral  quality, 
tranquillity  from  the  sky,  firmness  from  the  rock, 
equanimity  from  the  plain.  Our  lives,  at  their  highest, 
find  an  appropriate  setting  in  natural  surroundings. 


1  This  argument  is  wiser  than  the  present  writer  was.  I  am  in- 
debted to  an  admirable  piece  of  writing  in  the  Manchester  Guardian 
(Nov.  8,  1904)  criticising  an  essay  I  published  in  that  year. 


WORDSWORTH  121 

Leonidas  dies  in  'the  steep  defile  of  Thermopylae.' 
'  The  boat  of  Columbus '  glides  in  among  the  Savan- 
nahs of  the  West.  The  body  rests  in  the  quiet  earth. 
How  is  it  that  a  woman  reminds  us  of  a  flower,  and 
the  evening  of  death?  What  song  does  Spring  sing 
in  our  ear?1 

Wordsworth's  poetry,  like  all  the  greatest  poetry, 
is  based  upon  the  fact,  and  it  is  perhaps  greatest  in 
this,  that  it  bears  witness,  more  than  any  other  poetry, 
to  the  chief  fact  of  life.  It  is  its  peculiar  office  to 
remind  us  that  we  are  a  part  of  a  whole,  a  whole 
which  is  cousin  to  us,  and  which  speaks  to  us  in  each 
activity,  from  the  flame  in  the  grate  to  the  incandes- 
cence of  the  stars.  For  the  purposes  of  this  relation, 
it  does  not  matter  whether  Nature  or  Man  brings  most 
to  the  other.  The  Universe  is  there  for  us  to  interpret, 
but  it  is  not  dumb.  It  is  not  dumb  because  in  it 
there  breathes  the  life  which  is  also  ours. 


1  The  quotations  are  from  Emerson's  Nature. 


122  POETRY  AND  PROSE 


BYRON 

WORDSWORTH  represents  best  the  attitude  of  soul 
which  was  the  Revolution's,  Shelley  its  inner  idea, 
and  Coleridge  its  romantic  afflatus  ;  but  if  the  historian 
wishes  to  see  how  the  ordinary  man  of  the  period  was 
affected  by  that  vast  and  new  movement,  he  will  not 
turn  to  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  or  Shelley,  he  will 
turn  to  Byron.  He  represents  best  the  effect  of  the 
Revolution.  A  sea  scourged  into  commotion  tells 
you  better  what  a  storm  does  than  the  thunder  and 
lightning ;  and  Byron's  representation  is  wide  enough 
to  represent,  not  the  English  effect  alone,  but  the 
European  effect.  So  variously,  episodically,  and  un- 
reasoningly  does  he  respond,  that  you  get  in  his 
poems  just  the  impetus  and  upheaval  produced  over 
the  whole  Continent.  Chief  of  all,  he  is  the  poet  of 
his  time  ;  he  is  not  a  minor  writer,  the  bigness  of 
his  spirit  enables  him  to  represent  the  effect  of  big 
forces  as  no  minor  writer  can  ;  and  his  huge  basis 
of  ordinariness  is  of  this  happy  service  to  him  that 
it  makes  him  easily  typical  of  popular  results. 

As  Wordsworth  felt  the  Revolution,  few  could  feel 
it ;  as  Byron  felt  it,  every  one.  Allowing  for  the 
added  intensity,  the  larger  scale  of  a  big  nature,  his 
responses  were  the  responses  of  all.  He  set  the 
emotions  of  the  crowd  to  music,  their  various  and 
often  contradictory  emotions,  pre-Revolutionary,  Re- 
volutionary, and  post-Revolutionary  ;  the  whole  con- 


BYRON  123 

tents  of  the  disturbed  ordinary  European  mind.  This 
is  one  of  the  reasons  why  he  was  read  so  much  abroad, 
and  it  is  one  of  the  reasons  for  his  established  place 
in  our  literature.  What  he  did  was  not  a  little  thing 
to  do  ;  no  one  else  did  it.  There  is  always  only  one 
who  can  ever  do  any  given  thing  perfectly.  Byron 
perfectly  represents  —  indeed  Byron  is,  pre-Revolu- 
tionary  man  as  affected  by  the  Revolution. 

To  fill  a  role  of  this  kind  many  qualities  are  neces- 
sary, and  the  nicest  arrangement  of  circumstances. 
The  circumstances  of  Byron  at  once  set  him  firmly 
in  the  established  order,  and  introduced  an  atmosphere 
of  disturbance  from  the  start.  He  came  of  the  class 
that  for  the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years  had 
ruled  England,  and  while  still  at  Harrow  became  a 
member  of  the  oligarchic  council.  He  was  provided 
with  a  stake  in  the  country  and  a  platform  when  in 
his  teens.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  not  born  in  the 
purple  ;  his  home  was  poor  (the  typical  cottage  opposite 
the  Park  gate),  he  had  a  club  foot  which  offended 
him,  and  a  mother  with  a  gusty  temper.  As  full  of 
worldly  sensibility  as  of  worldliness,  he  dissolves  in 
tears  when  first  saluted  as  Dominus. 

From  Harrow  he  proceeded  to  Cambridge,  where, 
studying  boxing  and  keeping  a  tame  bear,  he  conde- 
scended upon  the  modest  love  for  letters,  then  prevalent 
in  that  sober  place,  by  publishing  a  book  of  poems 
with  the  contemptuous  title  Hours  of  Idleness.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  no  volume  less  fruitful  in  promise 
was  ever  produced  by  a  poet  subsequently  eminent. 
And  though,  fortified  with  subsequent  knowledge,  we 
may  find  in  these  trifles  some  of  the  dispositions 
which  Byron  maintained  or  developed  later,  especially 


i24  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

his  maddening  habit  of  stressing  the  metre  as  if  his 
readers  were  metrically  deaf,  had  he  not  been  fortu- 
nately a  peer,  and  had  there  not  fortunately  been 
Whigs  in  the  world,  his  little  book  would  have  shot 
straight  into  oblivion's  pool.  The  notice  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review  was  roughly  equivalent  to  its 
subject  —  it  was  surprising  that  a  lord  should  write 
verses,  and  that,  if  he  wrote  them,  he  should  print 
verses  so  poor — but  it  stung  Byron  into  fury.  There 
is  always  this  thrust  and  riposte  in  his  life  ;  every- 
thing contributes  to  his  career. 

It  has  been  the  habit  of  critics  to  speak  slightingly 
of  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers,  and  certainly, 
as  satire,  it  is  not  good.  Byron  hits  out  in  all  direc- 
tions, and  his  denunciations  have  not  the  necessary 
basis  of  truth.  Pope  wounded  Addison  because  Atticus 
recognised  the  portrait ;  but  to  say  to  Jeffrey  that  he 
is  in  danger  of  the  hangman's  cord,  to  Wordsworth 
that  he  is  vulgar,  to  use  the  words  Walter  Scott 
as  three  syllables  of  contempt,  is  to  say  to  Arnold 
that  his  poems  are  amorous,  or  to  speak  of  some  one 
as  being  as  unamusing  as  Dickens.  One  shaft  alone 
went  home,  that  which  was  aimed  at  Moore. 

Yet  if  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers  has, 
as  satire,  no  vitality,  it  was  sufficient  to  display  the 
vitality  of  its  author.  These  random  shafts  do  not 
wound,  but  they  fly  fast  and  sing :  reckless  daring 
takes  the  fancy,  and  the  effect  is  that  of  promiscuous 
force.  The  Edinburgh  Reviewer  provoked  into  life 
the  most  puissant  personality  England  had.  In  this 
satire  Byron  comes  into  being  and  hurtles  upon  the 
stage  of  the  world. 

Such  an  exhibition   could  not  pass   unnoticed  ;    its 


BYRON  125 

clangour,  its  'vim,'  its  random  brutality  exactly  caught 
the  fancy  of  Byron's  public.  John  Bull  with  a  genius, 
he  lived  before  John  Bull  was  deceased. 

Thus  famous,  Byron  devoted  himself  for  the  next  two 
years  to  representing,  though  unconsciously,  the  gurgi- 
tations of  his  time.  On  his  return  from  abroad  he 
published  in  February  1812  the  first  two  Cantos  of 
Childe  Harold,  and  thereafter  remained,  in  the  eyes  of 
his  contemporaries,  the  monarch  of  Parnassus.  There 
flows  from  him,  for  three  years,  romance  after  romance, 
full,  as  was  proper  in  the  days  of  the  Regent  and 
Napoleon,  of  gallantry  and  war  ;  Giaours,  Conrads, 
Laras,  that  unite  an  occasional,  but  occasionally 
brilliant,  descriptive  power,  and  a  rattling  liveliness  of 
narrative,  with  what  have  come  to  be  the  common- 
places of  the  romantic  stage. 

The  success  was  too  heady,  and  these  poems  are 
without  reality.  Byron  mirrors  the  popular  aspirations 
and  tendencies,  though  unconsciously,  too  exhaustively. 
In  these  forceful  extravaganzas,  where  all  the  energies 
of  youth  hurry  across  a  background  of  world  melan- 
choly, there  is  too  much  for  effect.  This  was  not 
Byron ;  it  was  a  mirror  in  which  the  heavy  boobies  of 
the  day  could  see  the  development  of  passions  which 
as  they  fancied,  and  fancied  perhaps  rightly,  lay  un- 
developed within  them.  Their  daughters  were  as  wise, 
and  many  a  demure  maid  must  have  soaked  her  pillow 
thinking  how  well  she  understood — she  whom  an 
unhappy  fate  had  confined  at  a  boarding-school — the 
sorrows  of  the  Bride  of  Abydos.  The  roar  of  Jemappes 
had  died  away,  but  it  had  left  to  a  world,  familiarised 
with  startling  developments,  such  possibilities  of 
sympathy. 


126  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Fortunately  for  the  world,  for  how  often  it  profits  by 
the  misfortunes  of  men  of  genius,  Byron  was  not  much 
longer  to  enjoy  circumstances  so  *  proudly  fine.'  On 
the  second  of  January  1815  he  married  Miss  Milbanke, 
and  within  the  year  the  crash  came.  His  tinsel  glory 
fell  from  him  ;  the  hero  became  the  outlaw,  and  the 
darling  of  society  its  assailant. 

Of  all  the  tricks  of  the  genius  of  literature  this  is  the 
most  pleasing.  At  a  turn  of  the  hand  the  pose  became 
a  fact.  There  was  now  a  dark  secret ;  there  was  now 
good  ground  both  for  melancholy  and  disappointment  ; 
there  was  now  a  breach  with  law.  Everything  Byron 
had  imagined  of  picturesque  in  personal  fate  now 
attached  to  his  own.  He  was  not  unaware  of  the 
effectiveness  of  the  reality,  and  in  this  sense  the  pose 
continues,  but  the  pose  is  now  the  pose  of  the  fact.  He 
wears  his  outlaw  circumstances  as  a  foreign  cloak  of 
distinction,  but  they  are  his  circumstances.  The 
theatricality  continues,  but  the  drama  is  now  no  longer 
Childe  Harold,  it  is  Byron.  Everything  he  writes  after 
1815  is  real,  not,  of  course,  with  the  inner  reality  of 
unstudied  emotion,  but  real  in  no  trivial  sense,  as  real 
as  its  author.  This  division  between  the  two  parts  of 
Byron's  poetical  career  Arnold  did  not  observe.  He 
was  not  careful  to  distinguish  between  a  theatricality 
almost  pure  and  a  manner  which,  though  of  the 
theatre,  had  the  matter  supplied  to  it.  The  early 
Byron  had  not  sufficient  reality  to  be  a  poet  above  the 
third  rank  ;  the  later  Byron  has  sufficient  reality  for 
his  purpose ;  not  enough  to  be  Wordsworth,  but 
enough — a  real  sincerity  and  trueness  to  himself — to  be 
Byron.  The  highest  kind  of  inner  sincerity,  that 
which  belongs  to  the  greatest  poets,  Byron  did  not 


BYRON  127 

possess ;  a  lower  but  genuine  kind,  that  which  is 
necessary  to  an  orator,  in  the  later  part  of  his  career 
and  then  in  a  high  degree,  he  did. 

In  his  earlier  period  one  can  trace  in  embryo  many 
faculties,  but  there  are  only  two  that  are  ripely 
developed,  those  of  copiousness  and  descriptive  power. 
Both  those  faculties  appear  more  remarkable  when,  as 
in  the  later  period,  his  mind  has  a  wider  content ;  and 
yet  what  is  truly  as  remarkable,  when  we  consider 
the  levity  of  the  earlier  matter,  is  their  pronounced 
development  so  soon. 

Byron's  descriptive  power  always  is  highly  vivid, 
more  vivid  than  Scott's,  and  this  perhaps  was  what 
Scott  was  thinking  of  when  he  said  *  Byron  bet  me.' l 
It  is,  however,  always  descriptive  power  pure  and 
simple.  The  scene  is  realised  without  being  real. 
After  having  read  the  description,  the  picture,  of 
Mazeppa  for  instance,  is  printed  on  your  mind  forever, 
without  either  seeming  a  part  of  actual  life  or  making 
life  more  real.  This  is  not  always  due  to  the  isolated 
character  of  the  incidents,  as  at  the  close  of  Lara  (the 
last  of  Ezzelin,  Arnold  calls  the  passage) ;  for  the  im- 
pression is  similar  where  Byron  describes  an  assault, 
Parisina's  swoon  or  cry,  the  mustering  for  battle  before 
Waterloo,  or  Venice.  It  is  due  to  an  excess  of  vivid- 
ness, or  let  me  rather  say  to  a  vividness  in  excess  of 
what  life  wears.  It  is  as  if  you  saw  life  through  an 
opera-glass.  But  this  is  a  distinguishing  feature  of 
Byron's  vision,  which  is  as  much  a  defect  as  a  merit. 


1  Scott,  of  course,  meant  primarily  that  Byron  had  outdistanced 
him  with  the  public  ;  but  there  is  a  tribute  as  well  as  a  statement  in 
the  phrase. 


128  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

In  life  for  all  of  us  everything  in  sight  is  to  some  degree 
harmonised  by  a  neighbouring  object  ;  the  unequivocal 
green  of  the  grass  modifies  the  impression  which  is 
made  by  the  young  and  almost  yellow  birch  in  spring. 
We  see  sideways  as  well  as  direct,  and  it  is  seldom 
anything  splashes  at  us.  We  have  to  look  at  a 
daffodil  through  our  hands  to  see  how  golden  it  is. 
Truth  to  this  fact  of  human  life  we  call  in  art  a  sense  of 
relation,  and  this  sense  Byron,  till  he  comes  to  write 
his  satires,  does  not  give.  When  we  say  then  that 
Byron's  descriptive  power  compared  to  the  descriptive 
power  of  Scott  is  astonishingly  vivid,  we  are  dis- 
tinguishing, not  undilutedly  praising.  The  most  vivid 
incidents  in  Scott,  the  fight  of  Fitzjames  and  Roderick 
Dhu,  are  not  the  most  real.  A  more  fluid  character, 
and  therefore  a  further  reality,  attaches  to  the  account 
of  the  stag-hunt,  the  process  of  which  in  memory  is 
dim.  Byron's  wonderful  descriptive  power  has  some  of 
the  characteristics  of  sensational  art.  His  habit  of 
isolating  the  object  of  sight  (not  of  feeling)  involves  a 
falsity,  and  so  much  is  this  true  that  the  descriptions 
that  seem  most  real  are  those  of  objects  necessarily  and 
of  their  nature  isolated — Mazeppa  and  the  Prisoner  of 
Chillon,  for  example.  Here  you  may  quarrel  with  the 
selection  of  too  effective  subjects,  but  you  cannot 
quarrel  with  the  concentration  of  vision. 

His  other  faculty  of  copiousness  is  a  pure  merit,  or  it 
is  a  pure  merit  for  him.  It  was  the  faculty  that  enabled 
him  to  display  a  rich  nature  moving  variously,  to 
display  it  in  all  its  affections,  and  to  give  the  effect  of  a 
whole.  Of  all  poets  Byron  is  he  who  is  least  to  be 
represented  by  any  process  of  selection.  Beauties 
there  are,  and  Arnold  has  made  a  happy  selection  of 


BYRON  129 

them,  but  the  reader  of  Arnold's  little  volume  has 
not  the  faintest  idea  of  the  poet.  You  might  as  well 
attempt  to  represent  a  kaleidoscope  by  a  few  pieces  of 
brightly  coloured  glass.  The  whole  thing  is  in  the 
shake,  the  process  of  transmutation.  Undergoing  this 
process  the  over-vividness  of  the  parts  is  not  so  offen- 
sive ;  you  have  not  time  to  be  properly  affronted. 
Especially  was  this  so  as  the  range  of  his  outlook 
increased,  and  thus  his  faculty  of  copiousness  stood 
him  always  in  increasing  stead.  It  is  the  most 
dangerous  of  qualities,  for  while  a  small  man  can 
squeeze  and  restrain  his  output  till  there  is  something 
that  is  at  least  pruned  of  what  is  bad,  there  must  be 
genuine  virtue  to  be  served  by  a  gushing  display. 
And  indeed  there  was.  Byron's  faults  were  many,  but 
no  bigger  or  more  generous  heart  ever  beat  in  human 
bosom.  Beside  Wordsworth  Byron  often  looks  a 
child,  but  beside  Byron  Wordsworth  sometimes  a  little 
man.1  In  modern  times  there  are  only  two  personali- 
ties at  all  comparable,  those  of  Shakespeare  and 
Napoleon.  There  is  not  intensity  alone,  or  one  might 
add  Shelley  ;  there  is  volume,  there  is  gusto.  The 
third  and  fourth  Cantos  of  Childe  Harold  are  like  the 
impression  of  a  larger  world  produced  in  the  House  of 
Commons  when  Mr.  Gladstone  got  on  his  legs.  Man- 
fred'^ like  Mr.  Parnell's  last  manifesto  ('the  English 
wolves ') ;  to  read  through  the  letters  is  to  come  in 
contact  with  a  vitality  beside  which  one's  own  life, 
though  lived  in  the  actual,  pales  ;  Don  Juan  in  the 


1  See  the  stories  in  Carlyle's  Reminiscences,  in  the  Journal  of 
the  Rev.  Julian  Charles  Young  (Macmillan,  1871),  and  in  Miss 
Martineau's  Autobiography. 

I 


130  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

verity  of  its  abandon  is  the  unguarded  display,  and  how 
rare  a  thing,  of  man  in  society. 

I  suppose,  but  for  the  clamant  exception  of  Shake- 
speare, we  might  say  that  no  purely  poetical  force  can 
display  a  copiousness  equal  to  this.  Great  poetry  is  a 
selected  portion  even  of  a  great  poet's  feeling.  We 
feel,  when  reading  Wordsworth  or  Milton,  that  we  are 
allowed  intimacy  only  with  the  best  part  of  their  being. 
There  is  a  reserve  ;  the  kind  of  reserve  that  prevents 
Heaven  including  Purgatory  and  the  Inferno.  Byron's 
effusiveness  and  heedless  haste  make  him  the  friend  of 
every  one.  He  lives  in  that  '  devil-may-care  '  which 
enchants  the  'purblind  race  of  miserable  men.'  But 
this  conquest  of  the  world  is  due  to  personal  causes, 
and  is,  though  a  literary,  not  a  poetical  triumph.  The 
very  qualities  which  make  Byron  so  effective  as  a  force 
and  as  a  satirist  make  against  him  in  the  field  of  pure 
poetry.  Copiousness  alone,  if  it  is  not  a  poetical 
copiousness,  is  a  disservice  poetically. 

To  write  a  social  satire  Byron  was  exactly  fitted,  and 
in  the  success  of  Don  Juan  everything  in  his  circum- 
stances had  part.  Those  who  condemn  society 
generally  condemn  it  from  the  hermit's  cave,  or, 
at  least,  without  ever  having  been  able  to  partake  of 
its  life,  their  own  solitariness  of  spirit  fencing  them 
among  the  crowd.  But  Byron  knew  society  ;  he  was 
exempt  from  hardly  one  of  its  brassier  vices  ;  he  knew 
the  ordinary  man — at  bottom  he  was  an  ordinary  man, 
sharing  his  loves  and  admirations  ;  in  himself  he  was  an 
exaggeration  of  his  virtues,  his  veins  throbbed  with 
his  ardours.  And  this  society,  this  world  of  elbowing 
men  and  attendant  women  whose  vision  was  his,  had 
shut  him  out  from  Paradise.  The  way  of  the  world 


BYRON  131 

had  defeated  him,  and  in  return  he  is  Mephistopheles 
to  the  way  of  the  world.     The  whole  thing  is  a  mockery 
— the  laugh  of  a  fiend  who  denies  that  everything  that 
is  usual  is  good.     He  claims  the  license  of  the  aristocrat 
to  sneer  at  home  virtues,  and  the  liberty  of  the  outlaw 
generously  to  admire.     Feeling,  observation,  irony,  a 
welter  of  incidents,  popular  political  notions,   the  cant 
of  the   governing  class,  flat  tirades,  that  attitude  to- 
wards women  which  peculiarly  belongs  to  the  vulgar 
male,  the  most  obvious  and  bluntest  sarcasm,  at  times 
satire   the   smoothest  and    most    insinuating   because 
freely  dashed   with  sentiment,    a  frequent  voluptuous 
charm,  these  jostle  each  other.     Taken  together  they 
give  a  view  of  a  world  ;  they  are  related,  or  at  least  one 
thing  relates  itself  to  the  next.     Nowhere  is  Byron's 
merit  of  copiousness  of  greater  service,  nowhere  is  the 
kaleidoscope  turned  more  quickly.     The  colours  are  all 
high,  but  they  flash  past  and  change  one  into  another. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  claim  imperishable  excellence  for 
Don  Juan,  but  it  has  a  permanent  appeal  to  the  society 
to  which  it  was  addressed.     Men  of  the  world,  and  of 
that    world,    no   doubt,    become    fewer   as   civilisation 
becomes  increasingly  democratised,  and  the  man  whose 
favourite    reading  is   Don  Juan  is  now  often  a  sorry 
fellow.     Something   of    the    short    day   of  the   orator 
attaches  to   this   consummate  effort  of  Byron's  muse, 
but  it  has  the  highest  rank   as  a  personal  and  social 
document.     There  is  no  whispered  sound  in  it  too  fine 
to  catch  the  ear  of  the  ordinary  citizen,  and  no  work 
with  so  little   of  permanence   will  continue   to   be   so 
permanently  read. 

What  is  the  species  of  poetic  merit  to  which  a  nature 
capable,  and  chiefly  capable,  of  such  an  achievement 


132  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

can  attain?     In  considering  this  we  shall  have  to  enter 
on  a  series  of  qualified  statements. 

Metrical  facility  Byron  does  possess,  an  unusual 
command  of  almost  all  the  metres  in  common  time. 
But  his  metrical  ear  is  not  delicate.  The  metre  is 
metre  in  black  and  white  : — 

'Since  our  Country,  our  God— oh  my  Sire  ! 
Demand  that  thy  Daughter  expire.' 

Too  often  it  is  like  this,  like  a  dentist's  operation  ;  and 
the  occasions  on  which  Byron  conforms  to  the  inner 
law  of  the  rhythm,  without  pronouncing  the  law  at 
every  foot,  are  rarer  than  with  any  other  poet  of  his 
rank.  For  this  reason  his  blank  verse  is  very  unread- 
able. Blank  verse  depends  in  an  especial  degree  for 
the  fluidity  of  its  effect  upon  the  harmony  of  regularity 
with  irregularity.  There  must  be  a  variation  sufficient 
to  destroy  the  monotony  without  destroying  the 
regularity  of  the  beat.  It  goes  to  a  time-tune  in  the 
poet's  head,  and  since  it  does  is  capable,  with  each 
new  poet,  of  new  variety.  What  looseness  of  expres- 
sion to  say  that  the  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  and 
Lear  are  written  in  the  same  metre !  The  fact  is, 
there  is  an  inner  metre,  widely  different,  which  how- 
ever in  both  cases  expresses  itself  in  common  form. 
We  may  say  blank  verse  is  no  more  than  an  instrument 
on  which  every  poet  can  play  his  own  music.  The 
music  is  not  partly  supplied  from  without,  as  rhyme 
and  the  stanza  supply  it,  nor  does  it  rely  in  the  same 
way  as  other  poetry  upon  a  series  of  separate  effects. 
A  poem  in  blank  verse,  if  it  is  to  be  a  poem,  must 
depend  for  its  poetical  effect  upon  one  effect — the 
poetical  effect  of  the  whole.  And  for  a  sustained 


BYRON  133 

poetical  effort  of  this  kind  Byron  is  peculiarly  unsuited. 
Even  in  the  short  efforts  of  lyrical  poetry  his  success  is 
episodic. 

Shall  we  find  in  the  matter  a  more  constant  attain- 
ment of  a  strictly  poetical  kind?  The  inquiry  is  not  a 
hopeful  one,  for  the  kind  of  formal  defect  that  exists 
in  Byron's  poetry  (not  every  kind  of  formal  defect) 
implies  a  defect  in  the  substance  ;  it  implies  a  blunt- 
ness. 

Arnold,  indeed,  quotes  two  very  beautiful  lines  from 
Byron — lines  that  combine  the  sympathetic  emotion 
of  Wordsworth  with  a  captivating  sentiment : — 

'  He  heard  it,  but  he  heeded  not — his  eyes 
Were  with  his  heart,  and  that  was  far  away '  ; 

and  Arnold  adds,  '  Of  verse  of  this  high  quality  Byron 
has  much,'  but  to  speak  so  is  surely  thoughtless. 
This  verse,  describing  the  dying  gladiator's  state  of 
mind  as  he  hears  the  shout  for  the  victor,  is  not  pro- 
perly to  be  described  as  verse  of  high  quality  ;  it  is  of 
the  highest  quality.  There  is  here  the  quiet  absoluteness 
of  the  greatest  poetry — saying  all  ;  and  of  verse  of  this 
quality  it  would  be  much  truer  to  say  that  Byron  has 
nothing  more.  Interpretative  power  of  this  order, 
with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  surprising  instances, 
is  simply  not  his.1  This  is  the  kind  of  thing  Byron 


1  Perhaps  a  phrase  in  'The  Dream' : — 

*  But  the  old  mansion,  and  the  accustom'd  hall, 
And  the  remember'd  chambers,  and  the  place, 
The  day,  the  hour,  the  sunshine,  and  the  shade.' 

Though    this    is   preceded  and    even   immediately  followed  by  a 

flatness  :  — 

'  What  business  had  they  there  at  such  a  time  ? ' 


134  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

generally  writes  when  he  is  making  a  poetical  effort, 
exercising  a  free  imagination  : — 

'The  sky  is  changed  ! — and  such  a  change  !     Oh  Night 
And  storm,  and  darkness,  ye  are  wondrous  strong, 
Yet  lovely  in  your  strength,  as  is  the  light 
Of  a  dark  eye  in  woman  ! ' 

That  is  dreadful. 

The  stars  are  forth,  the  moon  above  the  tops 
Of  the  snow-shining  mountains, — Beautiful  ! 
I  linger  yet  with  Nature,  for  the  night 
Hath  been  to  me  a  more  familiar  face 
Than  that  of  man.' 

That  is  strained  ;  and  of  such  writing,  of  attempted 
poetry,  there  is  a  great  deal  in  Byron — a  great  deal 
where  a  little  would  be  too  much. 

Sometimes  what  is  attempted  is  achieved,  and  the 
result  is  poetry,  the  occasional  delicacy  of  the  feeling 
even  informing  the  metre  :— 

'  There  be  none  of  Beauty's  daughters 

With  a  magic  like  thee  ; 
And  like  music  on  the  waters 
Is  thy  sweet  voice  to  me.' 

But  the  note  is  not  deep,  nor  is  it  sustained.  Some- 
times, too,  where  the  result  is  very  successful,  we  are 
still  conscious  of  the  effort.  There  are  the  verses 
which  Byron,  returning  from  a  ball,  wrote  on  Miss 
Wilmot,  who  had  worn  a  dark  dress  with  spangles  :— 

*  She  walks  in  beauty,  like  the  night 
Of  cloudless  climes  and  starry  skies  ; 

And  all  that  3s  best  of  dark  and  bright 
Meet  in  her  aspect  and  her  eyes  : 

Thus  mellow'd  to  that  tender  light 
Which  heaven  to  gaudy  day  denies. 


BYRON  135 

One  shade  the  more,  one  ray  the  less, 
Had  half  impair'd  the  nameless  grace 

Which  waves  in  every  raven  tress, 
Or  softly  lightens  o'er  her  face  ; 

Where  thoughts  serenely  sweet  express 
How  pure,  how  dear  their  dwelling-place. 

And  on  that  cheek,  and  o'er  that  brow, 

So  soft,  so  calm,  yet  eloquent, 
The  smiles  that  win,  the  tints  that  glow, 

But  tell  of  days  in  goodness  spent, 
A  mind  at  peace  with  all  below, 

A  heart  whose  love  is  innocent ! ' 

One  has  but  to  compare  this  with  Wordsworth's 
*  She  was  a  phantom  of  delight,'  to  feel  the  under- 
strain.  Byron's  piece  has  the  mellowness  which  was 
his  ;  it  is  full,  exceptionally  full,  of  the  ripeness  of  his 
exotic  charm,  and  yet  we  feel  it  hovering,  as  if  about 
to  settle  on  contrast  and  antithesis.  The  *  tender  light,' 
the  *  gaudy  day,'  *  the  one  shade  more,'  the  opposition 
between  a  gentle  innocence  and  a  splendid  dark  beauty 
— such  are  contrasted  effects.  Evident,  too,  is  the 
appeal,  as  evident  as  the  definition,  nothing  of  the 
shadow  that  there  is  in  Wordsworth's 

'  Her  eyes  as  stars  of  twilight  fair  ; 
Like  twilight's,  too,  her  dusky  hair.' 

Nor   is  it  merely  shadow   to   express   which    Byron's 
words  are  too  plain  : — 

'  But  all  things  else  about  her  drawn 
From  May-time  and  the  cheerful  dawn.' 

Wordsworth's  feeling  is  so  intimate  it  often  cannot 
be  expressed  without  using  unfamiliar  terms. 

A  crucial  instance  of  this  lack  of  inner  delicacy  is  to 
be  found  in  Byron's  imitation  of  Sappho. 


136  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

This  is  what  he  says  : — 

'  Oh,  Hesperus  !  thou  bringest  all  good  things — 

Home  to  the  weary,  to  the  hungry  cheer, 
To  the  young  bird  the  parent's  brooding  wings, 

The  welcome  stall  to  the  o'er-labour'd  steer  ; 
Whate'er  of  peace  about  our  hearthstone  clings, 

Whate'er  our  household  gods  protect  of  dear, 
Are  gather'd  round  us  by  thy  look  of  rest ; 

Thou  bring'st  the  child,  too,  to  the  mother's  breast.' 

This  is  Sappho  :— 

'  Oh  evening,  bringing  all  that  morning  scattered, 
thou  bringest  the  sheep,  thou  bringest  the  goat,  thou 
bringest  the  child  back  to  her  mother.' 

It  may  be  said  that  no  one  could  have  paraphrased 
those  words,  in  which  so  much  is  said  by  saying  so  little, 
without  spoiling  them  ;  but  it  is  safe  to  say  Byron  was 
quite  innocent  that  he  had  here  exchanged  an  immortal 
verse  for  a  pathetic  one.  The  enumeration,  the 
antithesis,  the  afterthought,  he  could  not  see  as  merely 
the  alloy  of  the  man  of  prose.  A  plainness  of  this  kind 
was  for  him  beyond  even  appreciation  :  he  did  not  feel 
with  sufficient  intimacy,  with  sufficient  poetic  sincerity, 
to  know  how  close  is  Sappho  to  the  truth  of  feeling. 

Is  Byron  not  then  sincere?  He  is  sincere,  singularly 
outspoken  and  sincere,  but  the  connection  between  the 
impression  and  the  expressed  feeling  is  by  no  means 
instantaneous.  Indeed  we  might  almost  say,  though 
to  say  it  is  a  contradiction  in  terms,  that  there  is  no 
instantaneous  connection  between  the  impression  and 
the  feeling  itself.  Before  he  has  completely  felt  the 
impression  he  has  begun  to  think  what  it  is,  nay,  how 
to  express  it.  He  has  his  eye  always  on  his  audience, 
and  is  always  directly  addressing  someone.  And  this 
is  the  root  difference  between  the  poet  strictly  so  called 


BYRON  137 

and  the  orator.1  Poetry  is  a  record  of  feeling  ;  oratory 
is  an  appeal,  based,  of  course,  on  emotional  experience, 
but  meant  to  excite  feeling.  It  is  an  address  to  the 
feeling  of  the  audience.  Great  oratory,  and  Byron's  is 
superbly  great,  forces  a  contact  between  the  emotions 
of  the  audience  and  the  emotions  of  the  speaker. 
Poetry  displays  its  own  heart.  Oratory  tears  open  the 
heart  of  the  listener. 

If  we  look  at  Byron's  poetry  from  this  point  of  view, 
we  shall  find  that,  just  in  so  much  as  it  is  deficient  in 
the  pure  inner  quality  of  the  most  truthful  poetry,  it  is 
proficient  in  the  more  external  quality  of  oratory. 
Before  Sappho's  verses  can  mean  anything  to  any  one, 
there  is  necessary  some  retirement  to  the  sessions  of 
thought.  But  Byron  as  he  runs  along,  pointing  his 
effects,  educes  a  sympathetic  understanding.  Great 
oratory  depends  just  as  much  as  the  greatest  poetry  upon 
emotion  ;  nor  is  it  correct  to  say  that  the  one  depends 
upon  the  emotion  of  the  hearer,  the  other  on  that  of 
the  speaker.  No  orator  ever  aroused  emotion  without 
himself  experiencing  emotion.  What  it  is  correct  to 
say  is  that  the  orator  is  thinking  primarily,  not  of  what 
he  feels  himself,  but  of  how  he  can  affect  others.  His 
feeling  is  necessary  to  him,  but  it  is  no  more  necessary 

1  '  Poetry  and  eloquence  are  both  alike  the  expression  or  utterance 
of  feeling.  But  if  we  may  be  excused  the  antithesis,  we  should  say 
that  eloquence  is  heard,  poetry  is  0z/<?Hieard.  Eloquence  supposes 
an  audience  ;  the  peculiarity  of  poetry  appears  to  us  to  lie  in  the 
poet's  utter  unconsciousness  of  a  listener.  Poetry  is  feeling  confessing 
itself  to  itself,  in  moments  of  solitude,  and  embodying  itself  in  sym- 
bols which  are  the  nearest  possible  representations  of  the  feeling  in 
the  exact  shape  in  which  it  exists  in  the  poet's  mind.  Eloquence  is 
feeling  pouring  itself  out  to  other  minds,  courting  their  sympathy,  or 
endeavouring  to  influence  their  belief  or  move  them  to  passion  or  to 
action.' — Mill,  Poetry  and  its  Varieties. 


138  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

than  his  tongue.  The  feeling  of  the  orator,  to  employ 
a  bold  figure,  is  the  tongue  of  his  heart ;  it  is  eloquent. 
How  easy  it  is  to  draw  distinctions,  and  how  difficult 
to  make  them.  The  orator  is  not  occupied  in  telling 
people  how  he  feels,  but  in  getting  people  to  feel  with 
him.  For  this  reason  his  chief  enemy  is  inattention, 
and  since  it  is,  he  must  deal  in  contrast  and  antithesis, 
he  must  deal  in  broad  effects  : — 

'  When  Nero  perished  by  the  justest  doom 
Which  ever  the  destroyer  yet  destroyed.3 

Nero  had  little  to  do  with  Hesperus,  but  he  points,  and 
points  rightly,  Byron's  moral. 

Take,  for  instance,  that  moving  passage  about  the 
Colosseum  : — 

'  And  here  the  buzz  of  eager  nations  ran, 

In  murmur'd  pity,  or  loud-roar'd  applause, 

As  man  was  slaughter'd  by  his  fellow-man. 

And  wherefore  slaughter'd  ?  wherefore,  but  because 

Such  were  the  bloody  Circus'  genial  laws, 

And  the  imperial  pleasure. — Wherefore  not  ? 

What  matters  where  we  fall  to  fill  the  maws 

Of  worms — on  battle-plains  or  listed  spot  ? 

Both  are  but  theatres  where  the  chief  actors  rot. 

I  see  before  me  the  gladiator  lie  : 

He  leans  upon  his  hand — his  manly  brow 

Consents  to  death,  but  conquers  agony, 

And  his  droop'd  head  sinks  gradually  low — 

And  through  his  side  the  last  drops,  ebbing  slow 

From  the  red  gash,  fall  heavy,  one  by  one, 

Like  the  first  of  a  thunder-shower  ;  and  now 

The  arena  swims  around  him — he  is  gone, 

Ere  ceased  the  inhuman  shout  which  hail'd  the  wretch  who  won. 

He  heard  it,  but  he  heeded  not — his  eyes 
Were  with  his  heart,  and  that  was  far  away  : 
He  reck'd  not  of  the  life  he  lost  nor  prize, 
But  where  his  rude  hut  by  the  Danube  lay, 
There  were  his  young  barbarians  all  at  play, 
There  was  their  Dacian  mother — he,  their  sire, 
Butcher'd  to  make  a  Roman  holiday.' 


BYRON  139 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  grander  oratory  :  the  dis- 
turbed atmosphere,  as  of  a  concourse,  of  the  noble 
introduction  ;  the  swift  appeal,  with  outflung  arm,  to 
humane  sentiment ;  the  invented  question  and  the 
broad  irony.  Nothing  is  perfect,  and  at  the  close  of 
the  first  stanza  there  is  poor  writing,  but  it  is  imme- 
diately followed  by  the  wonderful  second  stanza  so 
boldly  painted,  the  blood  that  falls  *  like  the  first  of  a 
thunder-shower,'  a  meretricious  but  colossal  figure  that 
out-Burkes  Burke,  and  then  the  swift  exitus,  and  the 
masterly  return  on  the  humane  mood  : — 

*  Ere  ceased  the  inhuman  shout  which  hail'd  the  wretch  who  won.' 

There  follows  a  stroke  of  pure  poetry,  improved  for  the 
purposes  of  popular  appeal  by  the  pathetic  explication, 
the  simple  home  scene,  the  children,  the  mother,  and 
then  thundering — 

'he,  their  sire, 
Butcher'd  to  make  a  Roman  holiday,3 — 

the  whole  pent-up  sympathies  of  the  audience  gather- 
ing to  a  head  in  that  glut  of  splendid  rage  :  a  hush  of 
wonder  and  then  the  whole  theatre  rising  to  its  feet. 

It  is  magnificent ;  but  it  is  not  the  method  of  poetry. 
The  tomb  of  Cecilia  Metella  is  another  familiar  in- 
stance : — 

'  There  is  a  stern  round  tower  of  other  days, 
Firm  as  a  fortress,  with  its  fence  of  stone, 
Such  as  an  army's  baffled  strength  delays, 
Standing  with  half  its  battlements  alone, 
And  with  two  thousand  years  of  ivy  grown, 
The  garland  of  eternity,  where  wave 
The  green  leaves  over  all  by  time  o'erthrown  ; — 
What  was  this  tower  of  strength  ?  within  its  cave 
What  treasure  lay  so  lock'd,  so  hid  ? — A  woman's  grave.' 


140  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

It  is  not  possible  to  beat  this.  What  art !  The  stern 
tower,  the  reference  to  martial  multitudes,  and  to  the 
withstood  attrition  of  the  years,  all  to  lead  to  the 
eternal  contrast,  the  source  of  human  birth  and  the 
quiet  resistless  end. 

Just  as  effective  are  Waterloo,  the  address  to  the 
Ocean,  the  falls  of  Terni,  the  shipwreck  in  Don  Juan, 
the  cup  of  Samian  wine.  Nay,  just  as  effective  are 
all  those  pieces  which  cannot  be  praised  throughout  for 
their  poetical  excellence,  'The  Dream,'  *  She  Walks  in 
Beauty ' ;  just  as  effective  is  the  quality  of  over-vivid- 
ness at  which  we  cavilled.  This  quality  of  over-vivid- 
ness is  indeed  found  to  be  essential. 

Such  rhetorical  merit,  the  merit  of  an  appeal  or  an 
effect,  attaches  to  pieces  which  have  hardly  any  other, 
Manfred  contra  Mundum,  for  instance.  This  dramatic 
poem,  Byron's  defiant  exclamation  that  he  can  live 
alone,  is,  as  a  whole,  nearly  unreadable ;  but  the  figure 
lives  in  the  memory  like  a  storm.  So  with  Cain,  which 
Arnold  amused  himself  with  demonstrating  not  to  be 
a  great  philosophical  work.  Cain  was  not  properly 
comparable  with  the  De  Rerum  Natura  ;  its  author  did 
not  possess  his  own  view  definitely  nor  see  it  suffi- 
ciently as  a  whole  ;  had  in  fact  no  view  ;  was  troubled 
with  the  difficulties  of  Genesis  and  *  the  two  principles.' 
Perhaps  in  Arnold's  day  this  needed  saying,  or  perhaps 
it  was  Arnold's  way  of  saying  something  else.  Yet 
Cain  was  a  remarkable  achievement.  Obviously  not 
the  work  of  a  thinker,  nor  written  from  any  single 
standpoint,  it  occupied  itself  very  effectively  in  putting 
posers  to  the  current  theology,  and  it  startled  the  whole 
of  Byron's  England  as  the  crack  of  a  stockdriver's 
whip  startles  the  cattle  of  the  American  plains.  It  was 


BYRON  141 

an  actual  living  polemic  of  the  directest  kind,  and  one 
might  as  well  object  to  the  Tale  of  a  Tub  that  it  was 
not  written  by  Meredith.  Dr.  Kennedy's  views  did 
not  interest  Arnold,  but  they  interested  Byron.  Dr. 
Kennedy  was  sitting  on  the  Government  benches. 

A  merit  that  can  inform  and  give  life  to  whole  poems 
is  no  light  merit,  and  Byron's  oratorical  power  is  so  great 
that  he  leaves  all  other  English  orators  standing.  We 
have  not  to  say  *  How  different  from  Wordsworth.' 
We  have  to  say  '  How  much  better  than  Patrick  Henry.' 
Here  is  an  orator  who  is  moving  with  the  flow,  the 
rush,  and  the  light  of  poetry. 

And  how  strong  and  firm  is  Byron  : — 

'  A  solitary  shriek,  the  bubbling  cry 
Of  some  strong  swimmer  in  his  agony.' 

That  is  as  much  beyond  Macaulay  as  Shakespeare's 
plays  are  beyond  Tennyson's.  There  is  here  a  con- 
tained power.  How  the  blows,  on  this  side  and  on 
that,  heavily  fall.  He  puts  his  fist  through  : — 

'  You  have  the  Pyrrhic  dance  as  yet ;  * 
Where  is  the  Pyrrhic  phalanx  gone  ?' 

Byron  does  not  understand  war  as  Burns  understands 
it  or  Tolstoy,  but  no  such  noble  expression  of  the 
martial  instinct  as  Byron's  one  line, 

*  Battle's  magnificently-stern  array,' 

is  to  be  found  in  their  human  pages.  This  is  to 
express  what  the  serried  ranks  are  aspiring  to  feel 


1  Plato  (Laws,  vii.  816)  tells  us  there  were  two  main  classes  of 
dancing— the  warlike  or  Pyrrhic  dance,  and  the  dance  of  peace  (TO 
).— E.  A.  Sonnenschein's  Ideals  of  Culture. 


142  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

about  their  business.     It  is  to  achieve  the  purpose  of 
the  public  orator  : — 

'  Minions  of  splendour  shrinking  from  distress.' 

How  good  it  all  is,  and  how  impossible  to  be  bettered  ! l 
With  this  power  of  direct  and  luminous  appeal 
Byron  combines  another,  the  power  of  sentiment. 
And  this  power,  though  also  superseded  by  a  greater 
power  in  the  highest  poetry,  is  peculiarly  of  service  to 
an  orator.  To  an  orator  sentiment  is  of  greater  account 
than  feeling,  for  what  is  sentiment  but  feeling  dis- 
played ?  It  is  not  possible  to  have  sentiment  without 
feeling  ;  it  is  possible  to  have  feeling  without  sentiment. 
You  can  feel,  that  is  to  say,  without  posing  or  setting 
the  feeling  so  as  to  start  a  responsive  tear.  Feeling 
itself  is  without  consciousness  of  its  effect ;  it  is  direct, 
poignant,  even  sometimes  unmanly.  But  the  great 
speaker  must  exercise  control ;  from  his  touches  of 
tenderness  there  must  be  a  recovery.  You  move  an 
audience  by  standing  erect.  Sometimes,  coming 
where  it  does,  a  momentary  retrospect  is  enough  :— 


1  One  says  so,  forgetting  Shakespeare,  for  Shakespeare  has  some- 
times an  eloquence  that  contains  more  imagination  than  Byron's  : — 

'  Are  all  thy  conquests,  glories,  triumphs,  spoils, 
Shrunk  to  this  little  measure.' 

The  quality  that  is  in  this  that  is  not  in  Byron  at  his  best  is  a  clear 
magnificence.  And  just  for  this  reason  it  would  be  admired,  as  Lord 
Rosebery's  eloquence  is  admired,  by  any  audience  ;  but  it  would  not 
move  an  audience  as  Byron  would. 

Shakespeare  too,  at  other  times,  has  oratorical  lines  that  might  be 
Byron's  : 

'  Cowards  die  many  times  before  their  death.' 

But  Shakespeare's  power  of  writing  constantly  like  this  was  crowded 
out  by  his  power  of  writing  very  differently. 


BYRON  143 

'  I  have  a  passion  for  the  name  of  Mary, 
For  once  it  was  a  magic  name  to  me.' 

Sometimes  there  is  a  deliberate  balancing  : — 

'  Though  wit  may  flash    from    fluent  lips,  and  mirth  distract  the 

breast, 
Through  midnight  hours  that  yield  no  more  their  former  hope  of 

rest; 

'Tis  but  as  ivy-leaves  around  the  ruined  turret  wreath, 
All  green  and  wildly  fresh  without,  but  worn  and  grey  beneath.' 

Or  less  obviously,  but  more  finely  : — 

'  There 's  not  a  joy  the  world  can  give  like  that  it  takes  away, 
When  the  glow  of  early  thought  declines  in  feeling's  dull  decay  ; 
JTis  not  on  youth's  smooth  cheek  the  blush  alone,  which  fades  so  fast, 
But  the  tender  bloom  of  heart  is  gone,  ere  youth  itself  be  past.' 

Without  the  precision  of  the  opening  lines  that  last 
beautiful  one  would  sound  sentimental. 

Sometimes  too,  when  the  depth  of  the  feeling  over- 
masters, there  is  compression  of  the  lips  : — 

*  The  fire  that  on  my  bosom  preys 
Is  lone  as  some  volcanic  isle  ; 
No  torch  is  kindled  at  its  blaze — 
A  funeral  pile  ! ' 

Byron's  command  over  verse  is  considerable,  such 
as  to  afford  him  free  opportunity  of  developing  his 
sentiment — a  sentiment  which  for  richness  and  warmth 
of  generosity  stands  alone.  Usually  a  sentimental 
writer  has  something  that,  however  charming,  is 
essentially  feminine  in  his  nature,  something  Long- 
fellowish.  But  Byron  is  not  unmanned  ;  his  display  is 
like  the  first  drops  of  a  thunder  shower,  and  it  no 
more  detracts  from  his  dignity  than  the  cloud's 
bursting  detracts  from  that  of  heaven.  As  a  poet  of 


144  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

sentiment  he  has  a  range,  to  which  he  never  otherwise 
attains  : — 

"'Tis  sweet  to  hear  the  watch-dog's  honest  bark 

Bay  deep-mouth'd  welcome  as  we  draw  near  home  ; 

'Tis  sweet  to  know  there  is  an  eye  will  mark 
Our  coming,  and  look  brighter  when  we  come  ; 

}Tis  sweet  to  be  awaken'd  by  the  lark, 

Or  lull'd  by  falling  waters  ;  sweet  the  hum 

Of  bees,  the  voice  of  girls,  the  song  of  birds, 

The  lisp  of  children  and  their  earliest  words. 

Sweet  is  the  vintage,  when  the  showering  grapes 
In  Bacchanal  profusion  reel  to  earth.  .  .  .' 


One   can   think   of   the   cradle    and    yet    clink    one's 
glass. 

"Tis  sweet  to  win,  no  matter  how,  one's  laurels, 

By  blood  or  ink  ;  'tis  sweet  to  put  an  end 
To  strife  ;  'tis  sometimes  sweet  to  have  our  quarrels, 

Particularly  with  a  tiresome  friend  : 
Sweet  is  old  wine  in  bottles,  ale  in  barrels  ; 

Dear  is  the  helpless  creature  we  defend 
Against  the  world  ;  and  dear  the  schoolboy  spot 

We  ne'er  forget,  though  there  we  are  forgot.' 

There  is  nothing  of  the  litterateur  here  ;  it  is  the  man 
talking  to  men.  In  truth,  there  is  both  a  robustness 
and  an  orange  glow  in  these  sentimental  passages 
which  quiver  on  the  brink  of  tears.  They  move  like 
the  panorama  of  sunset,  full  of  that  fluent  reference  to 
all  things  that  distinguishes  great-hearted  talk.  No 
writer  gives  you  the  same  sense  of  coming  in  con- 
tact with  a  living  flesh-and-blood  personality.  The 
personality  disclosed  in  Wordsworth's  poems  is  an 
inner  personality.  If  you  met  him  he  would  not  be 
like  his  poems  ;  but  Byron,  at  his  best,  has  no  singing 


BYRON  145 

mantle  to  put  on.  He  has  not,  like  Shakespeare, 
a  secret  imaginative  world.  He  is  no  poetry  fellow  : — 

'  My  boat  is  on  the  shore, 

And  my  bark  is  on  the  sea  ; 
But,  before  I  go,  Tom  Moore, 
Here's  a  double  health  to  thee  ! ' 

That  might  be  trolled  out  in  a  mellow  voice  at  the 
banquet  of  social  joy.  You  can  see  him  lifting  his  cup, 
the  whole  head,  with  the  shining  eyes,  sparkling  with 
animation. 

It  is  the  charm  of  contact.  What  Byron  writes 
is  near  the  summit  of  that  perfection  to  which  a  purely 
external  poetry  can  attain. 


K 


146  POETRY  AND  PROSE 


EMERSON 

4  THE  emotionalisation  of  knowledge,' says  Mr.  Hudson 
in  his  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Literature,  is  inevit- 
ably a  slow  and  gradual  process  ;  but  meanwhile,  one 
measure  of  a  poet's  greatness  as  a  thinker  is  his  ability 
to  perceive  the  possibility  of  it.' 

Principal  Shairp  heads  a  chapter  of  his  essay  On 
the  Poetic  Interpretation  of  Nature,  l  Will  Science  put 
out  Poetry?'  and  in  the  copy  in  my  hands  Professor 
Nichol  has  answered  this  question  with  the  genial  note, 
<Yes,  for  a  hundred  years.'  Thirty-four  of  these 
years  have  gone,  and  Poetry  has  not  yet  seriously 
concentrated  upon  the  task  of  the  twentieth  century. 
The  novel  nature  of  the  task,  and  the  general  con- 
sciousness of  a  task  being  there,  has  for  the  most 
part  merely  damped  the  ardour  of  poets.  Our  love 
songs  have  not  of  late  been  good,  because  we  have 
heard,  faintly,  a  call  to  sing  of  the  new  interests. 
Sporadically  in  the  last  hundred  years  much  has  been 
attempted  by  great  men,  by  Emerson,  by  Arnold,  and 
by  Meredith.  Much  too  has  been  achieved,  yet  'the 
emotionalisation  of  knowledge  is  inevitably  a  slow  and 
gradual  process,'  and  what  Wordsworth  said  remains 
true :  '  If  the  labours  of  Men  of  science  should  ever 
create  any  material  revolution,  direct  or  indirect,  in  our 
condition,  and  in  the  impressions  which  we  habitually 
receive,  the  Poet  will  sleep  then  no  more  than  at 


EMERSON  147 

present ;  he  will  be  ready  to  follow  the  steps  of  the 
Man  of  science,  not  only  in  those  general  indirect 
effects,  but  he  will  be  at  his  side,  carrying  sensation 
into  the  midst  of  the  objects  of  the  science  itself.' 

But  this  time  has  not  yet  arrived  :  the  conclusions  of 
philosophy,  science,  and  criticism  are  not  yet  any 
necessary  part  of  the  general  mind — nay,  more,  the 
thinker  himself  seldom  apprehends  these  conclusions 
emotionally.  The  first  step  is  that  he  should  do  so  ; 
the  next  step  is  that  all  should  do  so. 

Emerson,  the  forerunner  in  everything  modern,  is 
the  forerunner  in  this.  His  poetry  is  to  be  judged  not 
solely  for  its  own  excellence,  but  for  its  worth  as  a 
factor  in  an  intellectual  development  that  will  be  the 
ripest  birth  of  the  coming  time.  Then  Poetry  will 
cease  to  confine  herself  to  the  chronicling  of  action 
and  the  topics  of  Love  and  Doubt :  she  will  expend 
her  emotion  on  her  inner  Faith.  A  new  Dante  and 
a  new  Milton  will  arise  to  sing  the  beliefs  of  the 
new  man. 

4  To  point  forward  and  to  help  in  the  accomplish- 
ment' of  this  is  the  true  work  of  Emerson's  poems. 
This  it  is  which  gives  them  a  character  of  their  own, 
which  makes  them  difficult  and,  to  those  who  run  away 
from  modern  life,  even  uninteresting.  It  is  so  much 
easier  to  luxuriate  in  the  imagery  of  'The  Blessed 
Damozel.' 

The  duty  of  the  literary  critic  is  not,  therefore,  to 
praise  Emerson  for  occasionally  writing  poems  on 
more  general  patterns.  He  does  so,  but  this  is  not  his 
chief  merit.  It  is  not  his  chief  merit,  but  the  merit  of 
these  occasional  poems  of  Emerson's  is  at  times  ex- 
tremely high.  In  the  poetry  of  quietism,  of  gentle  and 


148  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

resigned  feeling,  and  of  feeling  observation,  he  has  left 
occasional  work  which  is  not  of  its  kind  surpassable  ; 
and  in  a  poetry  of  a  lower  order,  a  poetry  whose  merit 
is  rhetorical,  his  occasional  successes  are  so  brilliant 
that  he  bulks  large  in  the  list  of  quotations  familiar  to 
the  literate. 

As  a  rhetorician  Emerson  has  the  supreme  merit  of 
not  being  rhetorical ;  I  mean,  that  the  balance  of  the 
saying  is  with  the  speaker.  In  Byron's  rhetoric  you 
feel  that  it  is  all,  or  if  not  all,  chiefly  in  the  address. 
He  is  thinking  much  more  of  the  people  he  is  address- 
ing than  of  the  thing  said,  with  the  consequence  that 
Byron's  rhetoric  is  never  for  long  not  wild.  The  target 
is  hit,  but  there  is  a  shower  of  arrows,  many  of  which 
fly  wide.  In  Emerson's  rhetoric,  though  the  thing  is 
put  in  the  most  telling  way  possible,  you  feel  there  has 
been  a  preliminary  and  conscientious  struggle  to  define 
the  thing.  It  is  legitimate  rhetoric,  the  wit  of  sense  :— 

'  Pay  ransom  to  the  owner, 

And  fill  the  bag  to  the  brim. 
Who  is  the  owner  ?    The  slave  is  owner, 
And  ever  was.     Pay  him.' 

What  a  wrestle  with  the  opposing  argument  went 
before  that  lightning  throw  ! 

1  So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 
When  Duty  whispers  low,  Thou  must, 
The  youth  replies,  I  can? 

One  could  not  say  that  but  as  the  result  of  a 
laborious  moral  experience.  Sometimes  it  is  a  long 
pondering  on  history  that  has  preceded  : — 

'  For  He  that  worketh  high  and  wise, 

Nor  pauses  in  his  plan, 
Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  skies 
Ere  freedom  out  of  man. 


EMERSON  149 

At  times,  too,  there  is  a  higher  virtue.  You  are  hardly 
conscious  that  you  are  being  addressed,  so  much  does 
the  poet  seem  to  be  thinking  aloud  : — 

4  Though  love  repine,  and  reason  chafe, 
There  came  a  voice  without  reply, — 
"  'Tis  man's  perdition  to  be  safe, 
When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die."' 

It  carries  much  further  than  Byron  at  his  best : — 

4 1  laugh  at  the  lore  and  the  pride  of  man, 
At  the  sophist  schools,  and  the  learned  clan  ; 
For  what  are  they  all,  in  their  high  conceit, 
When  man  in  the  bush  with  God  may  meet?' 

It  does  not  merely  convince  one,  it  sets  one  thinking. 
In  the  hymn  for  the  Concord  Monument,  rhetoric 
reaches  its  final  expression  : — 

*  Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world.' 

That  is  to  glorify  the  fact  without  boasting.  In  its 
square  shoulders  it  has  the  unaggressive  dignity  of 
defence,  and  pays  at  once  a  pointed  and  a  just  tribute 
to  America,  to  Freedom,  and  to  Man.1 

Besides  this  poetry,  very  easily  understood  and  with 
a  broad  moral  appeal,  Emerson  has  another  poetry 
more  definitely  poetic,  less  intellectual  and  more 
emotional. 


1  Cowper's 

*  Regions  Caesar  never  knew 
Thy  Posterity  shall  sway,' 

is  fine  too,  the  finest  thing  in  the  literature  of  Imperialism.  It  is 
fine  because  of  the  prospect  in  it,  by  which  it  is  separated  from  the 
vainglorious  celebration  of  present  achievement.  But  put  it  beside 
Emerson  and  it  is  but  a  prophetic  boast,  a  thing  of  glitter. 


150  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

It  must  be  premised,  however,  that  on  typically 
emotional  subjects — in  a  typical  love  poetry,  for  ex- 
ample— success  does  not  attend  his  steps.  On  emotional 
subjects  he  has  no  power  of  emotion.  These  poems 
often  are  too  thin  in  sentiment  ('Eva') ;  often  the  poet 
talks  round  his  subject  and  is  content  with  a  succession 
of  statements  ;  he  has  no  sufficient  command  of  music, 
no  sufficient  facility  of  rejection  of  unemotional 
images : — 

*  O'er  ten  thousand,  thousand  acres, 

Goes  light  the  nimble  zephyr  ; 
The  Flowers — tiny  sect  of  Shakers — 
Worship  him  ever.' 

Even  in  the  best  of  these  emotional  pieces  there  is  a 
sense  of  intellectual  effort : — 

'  When  the  redbird  spread  his  sable  wing, 

And  showed  his  side  of  flame  ; 
When  the  rosebud  ripened  to  the  rose, 
In  both  I  read  thy  name.' 

It  is  pretty,  but  it  is  made  pretty.  Those  who  find  a 
stately  charm  in  everything  Emerson  writes  will  find 
that  charm  still  in  these  love  pieces,  but  charm  of 
magic  they  have  none. 

At  times,  too,  when  something  observed  has  stirred 
in  him  a  transient  but  very  real  emotion,  he  disturbs 
the  emotional  effect  by  explaining  or  trying  to  explain. 
Take  this  beautiful  little  piece  to  the  American  wild 
flower  the  Rhodora  : — 

*  In  May,  when  sea-winds  pierced  our  solitudes, 
I  found  the  fresh  Rhodora  in  the  woods, 
Spreading  its  leafless  blooms  in  a  damp  nook, 
To  please  the  desert  and  the  sluggish  brook 
The  purple  petals,  fallen  in  the  pool, 
Made  the  black  water  with  their  beauty  gay  ; 
Here  might  the  red-bird  come  his  plumes  to  cool, 
And  court  the  flower  that  cheapens  his  array. 


EMERSON  151 

Rhodora  !     Let  the  sages  ask  thee  why 

This  charm  is  wasted  on  the  earth  and  sky, 

Why  thou  wert  there,  O  rival  of  the  rose  ! 

I  never  thought  to  ask,  I  never  knew  ; 

But,  in  my  simple  ignorance,  suppose 

The  self-same  Power  that  brought  me  there  brought  you.' 

This  is  not  to  be  placed  beside  Wordsworth's 
daffodils,  but  it  is  simple  and  affecting,  and  there  is  a 
beautiful  ascension  of  emotion  from  the  freshness  of 
the  opening  line  to  the  religious  sincerity  of  the  last. 
I  have  placed  the  real  Rhodora  in  a  footnote.1  The 
inserted  couple  of  lines  explain  nothing,  and  if  they 
did,  they  furnish  a  sudden  descent  to  the  level  road  of 
the  intellect. 

For  all  that,  on  occasion,  and  on  subjects  where  the 
appropriate  emotion  is  a  gentle  one,  Emerson  can  write 
with  a  clear,  fresh  grace  that  belongs  to  him  alone. 
These  triumphs  are  occasional,  but  they  are  triumphs, 
as  when  he  speaks  of  the  mists 

'  Gracing  the  rich  man's  wood  and  lake, 
His  park  where  amber  mornings  break' 

(a  phrase  that  you  would  have  said  was  Tennyson's, 
except  that  Tennyson  would  have  said  '  the  amber 
morn '),  or  as  when  he  speaks  of  the  free  life  of  the 
wood : — 

'  I  am  going  to  my  own  hearth-stone, 
Bosomed  in  yon  green  hills  alone, — 


1  In  the  text  given  I  have  taken  a  liberty  of  omission,  and  the 
poem  really  ends  as  follows  : — 

'  Rhodora,  if  the  sages  ask  thee  why 
This  charm  is  wasted  on  the  earth  and  sky, 
Tell  them,  dear,  that  if  eyes  were  made  for  seeing, 
Then  Beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being  ; 
Why  thou  wert  there,  O  rival  of  the  rose  ! '  etc. 


152  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

A  secret  nook  in  a  pleasant  land, 
Whose  groves  the  frolic  fairies  planned ; 
Where  arches  green,  the  livelong  day, 
Echo  the  blackbird's  roundelay.' 

Here  is  a  passage  that  might  have  stepped  straight  out 
of  the  pages  of  a  seventeenth-century  quietist : — 

'  When  the  forest  shall  mislead  me, 
When  the  night  and  morning  lie, 
When  sea  and  land  refuse  to  feed  me, 
'Twill  be  time  enough  to  die  ; 
Then  will  yet  my  mother  yield 
A  pillow  in  her  greenest  field, 
Nor  the  June  flowers  scorn  to  cover 
The  clay  of  their  departed  lover.' 

And  here  is  a  vignette  with  more  of  panorama  and 
open  air  in  it  than  was  ever  confined  in  a  drawing : — 

'  Many  hamlets  sought  I  then, 
Many  farms  of  mountain  men. 
Rallying  round  a  parish  steeple 
Nestle  warm  the  highland  people, 
Coarse  and  boisterous,  yet  mild, 
Strong  as  giant,  slow  as  child, 
Smoking  in  a  squalid  room 
Where  yet  the  westland  breezes  come.' 

There  are  only  two  emotional  poems  of  Emerson's 
which  may  be  said  to  be  successful  as  a  whole :  the 
*  Threnody,'  which  in  a  low  quiet  tone  is  very  noble, 
and  '  May  Day ' ;  but  in  both,  and  notably  in  '  May 
Day,'  the  second  half  of  which  is  a  falling  off,  parts  are 
better  than  the  rest.  The  '  Threnody '  was  composed 
under  the  influence  of  Emerson's  deepest  affliction,  the 
loss  of  his  darling  son.  The  depths  of  that  serene 
nature,  generally  superior  to  life  and  its  accidents,  for 
once  were  stirred  : — 


EMERSON  153 

*  O  child  of  paradise, 
Boy  who  made  dear  his  father's  home, 
In  whose  deep  eyes 

Men  read  the  welfare  of  the  times  to  come, 
I  am  too  much  bereft. 
The  world  dishonoured  thou  hast  left. 
O  truth's  and  nature's  costly  lie  ! 
O  trusted  broken  prophecy  ! 

0  richest  fortune  sourly  crossed  ! 
Born  for  the  future,  to  the  future  lost ! ' 

Or,  as  he  writes  in  a  strain  of  imaginative  clarity,  the 
resigned  mind  surrendering  itself  to  the  dream  of 
things,  and  therefore  to  the  contemplation  of  the 
dream's  continuance : — 

'  And  whither  now,  my  truant  wise  and  sweet, 
O,  whither  tend  thy  feet  ? 

1  had  the  right,  few  days  ago, 

Thy  steps  to  watch,  thy  place  to  know ; 

How  have  I  forfeited  the  right  ? 

Hast  thou  forgot  me  in  a  new  delight?' 


He  paints  the  dainty  picture  : — 

1  Ah,  vainly  do  these  eyes  recall 
The  school-march,  each  day's  festival, 
When  every  morn  my  bosom  glowed 
To  watch  the  convoy  on  the  road  ; 
The  babe  in  willow  wagon  closed, 
With  rolling  eyes  and  face  composed  ; 
With  children  forward  and  behind, 
Like  Cupids  studiously  inclined ; 
And  he  the  chieftain  paced  beside, 
The  centre  of  the  troop  allied, 
With  sunny  face  of  sweet  repose, 
To  guard  the  babe  from  fancied  foes. 
The  little  captain  innocent 
Took  the  eye  with  him  as  he  went ; 
Each  village  senior  paused  to  scan 
And  speak  the  lovely  caravan. 


154  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

From  the  window  I  look  out 
To  mark  thy  beautiful  parade, 
Stately  marching  in  cap  and  coat 
To  some  tune  by  fairies  played.'1 

A  similar  delicacy  and  a  more  unrestrained  emotion 
inform  the  '  Ode  on  May  Day,'  the  precursor  of  much 
that  Meredith  has  written  about  Nature,  the  music 
being  struck,  however,  on  a  bell  of  higher  note.  For 
the  first  time  in  English  poetry  man  is  in  contact  with 
the  outer  air,  undisturbed  by  a  breath  from  the  medita- 
tive or  religious  study  : — 

'As  if  time  brought  a  new  relay 
Of  shining  virgins  every  May.' 

The  invitation  fans  the  cheek  : — 

'  Up  and  away  !  where  haughty  woods 
Front  the  liberated  floods  : 
We  will  climb  the  broad-backed  hills, 
Hear  the  uproar  of  their  joy' ; 

or  mark  where 

*  The  million-handed  painter  pours 
Opal  hues  and  purple  dye  ; 
Azaleas  flush  the  island  floors, 
And  the  tints  of  heaven  reply.' 


1  Beside  this  stately  grief  Cowper's  famous  passage  is  from  a 
moral  standpoint  very  poor.  It  is  surcharged  with  a  sense  of  clam- 
ant personal  loss,  and  even  grudges  the  unfeeling  new  generation* 
the  playroom  that  was  his. 

'  Where  once  we  dwelt  our  name  is  heard  no  more, 
Children  not  thine  have  trod  my  nursery  floor  ; 
And  where  the  gardener  Robin,  day  by  day, 
Drew  me  to  school  along  the  public  way, 
Delighted  with  my  bauble  coach,  and  wrapp'd 
In  scarlet  mantle  warm,  and  velvet  cap, 
'Tis  now  become  a  history  little  known, 
That  once  we  call'd  the  pastoral  house  our  own.' 

But  how  inexpressibly  more  affecting  !    The  truth  is,  Emerson  has- 
too  fine  a  nature  to  be  supremely  great  as  an  emotional  poet. 


EMERSON  155 

The  wonderful  opening  is  the  sign  and  herald  of  a  new 
poetry : — 

'  Daughter  of  Heaven  and  Earth,  coy  Spring, 
With  sudden  passion  languishing, 
Maketh  all  things  softly  smile, 
Painteth  pictures  mile  on  mile, 
Holds  a  cup  with  cowslip-wreaths, 
Whence  a  smokeless  incense  breathes. 
Girls  are  peeling  the  sweet  willow, 
Poplar  white,  and  Gilead-tree, 
And  troops  of  boys 
Shouting  with  whoop  and  hilloa, 
And  hip,  hip  three  times  three.1 
The  air  is  full  of  whistlings  bland  ; 
What  was  that  I  heard 
Out  of  the  hazy  land? 
Harp  of  the  wind  or  song  of  bird, 
Or  clapping  of  shepherd's  hands, 
Or  vagrant  booming  of  the  air, 
Voice  of  a  meteor  lost  in  day  ? 
Such  tidings  of  the  starry  sphere 
Can  this  elastic  air  convey. 
Or  haply  'twas  the  cannonade 
Of  the  pent  and  darkened  lake, 
Cooled  by  the  pendent  mountain's  shade, 
Whose  deeps,  till  beams  of  noonday  break, 
Afflicted  moan,  and  latest  hold 
Even  unto  May  the  iceberg  cold. 
Was  it  a  squirrel's  pettish  bark, 
Or  clarionet  of  jay  ?  or  hark, 
Where  yon  wedged  line  the  Nestor  leads, 
Steering  north  with  raucous  cry 
Through  tracts  and  provinces  of  sky, 
Every  night  alighting  down 


1  *  Girls  are  peeling  the  sweet  willow, 
Poplar  white,  and  Gilead-tree, 
And  troops  of  boys 
Shouting  with  whoop  and  hilloa, 
And  hip,  hip  three  times  three. ' 


How  succulent  it  is  ! 


156  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

In  new  landscapes  of  romance, 
Where  darkling  feed  the  clamorous  clans 
By  lonely  lakes  to  men  unknown. 
Come  the  tumult  whence  it  will, 
Voice  of  sport,  or  rush  of  wings, 
It  is  a  sound,  it  is  a  token 
That  the  marble  sleep  is  broken, 
And  a  change  has  passed  on  things.' 

This  is  emotion  stirred  by  the  fact,  and  entering  into 
the  fact  and  colouring  it  emotionally.  The  fact  here, 
it  is  true,  is  a  fact  observed.  Greater  difficulties  are  in 
Emerson's  road  when  he  comes  to  deal  with  the  facts 
or  conclusions  of  the  intellect.  To  turn  them  into 
emotion  is  indeed  hard,  and  yet  this  is  precisely  for 
what  Emerson  as  a  poet  stands.  He  offers  to  us  more 
intellectual  matter  emotionally  apprehended  than  any 
poet  who  preceded  him.  He  is  not  always  successful ; 
often  he  is  contented  with  the  mere  statement  of  his 
conclusion,  or  finds  it  impossible  to  state  his  conclu- 
sion in  any  but  the  barest  intellectual  terms.  The 
verse — 

*  One  thing  is  forever  good ; 
That  one  thing  is  Success, — 
Dear  to  the  Eumenides, 

And  to  all  the  heavenly  brood' ; 

or  the  question — 

*  Why  Nature  loves  the  number  five, 
And  why  the  star-form  she  repeats ' ; 

or  what  he  has  to  say  of  «  Letters/  or  of  Freedom  in 
'Voluntaries,'  or  of  the  fortunate  Guy  in  the  poem  of 
that  name,  or  of  '  Berrying,'  or  of  the  revolutions  in 
the  generations  in  '  Woodnotes,'  — 

*  The  lord  is  the  peasant  that  was, 
The  peasant  the  lord  that  shall  be ' ; — 


EMERSON  157 

with  all  these  Poetry  has  had  nothing  to  do.  They 
may  be  a  little  more  neatly  stated  than  most  prose 
statements,  but  they  are  prose  statements.  Of  such 
statements  Emerson's  poems  are  far  too  full ;  they  make 
up  a  solid  half  of  his  nominal  poetry,  and  the  wisdom 
they  contain  does  not  justify  their  numerous  intrusion. 
This  is  a  fault,  and  one  of  the  gravest ;  but  it  is  not 
one  from  which  the  intellectual  poet  can  easily  free 
himself.  The  poetry  of  the  intellect  is  almost  bound 
to  be  diffusive  ;  the  reasoning  power  is  prone  to  amble, 
and  does  its  work  by  not  being  always  at  white  heat. 

Even  when  he  is  dealing  with  a  profound  thought 
— for  example,  a  thought  running  through  all  his 
writings — 

'  We  cannot  learn  the  cipher 

That 's  writ  upon  our  cell ; 
Stars  help  us  by  a  mystery 

Which  we  could  never  spell,' 

he  is,  as  here,  often  contented  with  the  mere  setting 
out  of  the  thought.  This  mystery  of  which  Emerson 
speaks — we  do  not  feel  its  mysteriousness  in  reading 
the  verse  which  speaks  of  it.  Here  is  not  an  in- 
tellectual truth  emotionally,  but  an  emotional  truth 
intellectually  apprehended.  The  stars  help  us  by  a 
mystery,  but  Emerson  does  not. 

It  is  curious  to  notice  in  his  poems  the  interaction 
of  two  separate  desires,  the  constant  effort  of  the 
emotion  to  make  poetry  out  of  intellectual  matter,  and 
the  cool  persistent  claim  of  the  intellect  to  set  the 
thing  fully  out.  'The  Sphinx'  contains  his  central 
doctrine,  his  doctrine  of  the  infinite  nature  of  the 
soul,  perhaps  never  more  clearly  stated  than  in  this 
verse  : — 


158  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

1  The  heavens  that  now  draw  him 

With  sweetness  untold, 
Once  found, — for  new  heavens 
He  spurneth  the  old.' 

But  this  is  not  poetry.  It  is  a  singularly  clear  state- 
ment of  the  doctrine,  by  means  of  the  metaphor  that 
is  at  once  most  easily  understood  and  nearest  to  hand. 
It  is  also  a  statement  of  sufficient  width.  When  he 
wrote  it  he  was  thinking  how  to  state  it.  But  a  little 
further  on,  the  idea  resting  in  his  mind,  the  emotion 
takes  fire : — 

'  Have  I  a  lover 

Who  is  noble  and  free  ? — 
I  would  he  were  nobler 

Than  to  love  me.' l 

This  is  not  as  explicit,  and  would  not  inform  a  general 
reader  as  carefully,  but  it  sets  alight  a  contagious 
emotion.  Similarly  in  '  Merlin  '  he  makes  the  scientific 
statement,  generalised  from  much  observation,  that 

'  Balance-loving  Nature 
Made  all  things  in  pairs.' 

The  student  of  natural  history  understands  that  and 
wishes  to  hear  no  more,  but  eight  lines  further  down 
Emerson  goes  on  :— 

'  Hands  to  hands,  and  feet  to  feet, 
In  one  body  grooms  and  brides  ; 
Eldest  rite,  two  married  sides 
In  every  mortal  meet.' 

The  thing  begins  to  glow. 


1  And  so  in  the  essay  on  Nature  (Essays,  2nd  Series) :  *  The 
accepted  and  betrothed  lover  has  lost  the  wildest  charm  of  his 
maiden  in  her  acceptance  of  him.' 


EMERSON  159 

Per  contra,  on  occasion  he  first  seizes  the  thing 
poetically,  and  then  stumbles  back  into  prose  : — 

4 1  thought  the  sparrow's  note  from  heaven, 
Singing  at  dawn  on  the  alder  bough  ; 
I  brought  him  home,  in  his  nest,  at  even  ; 
He  sings  the  song,  but  it  pleases  not  now,' 

but  he  must  attempt  an  explanation  : — 

1  For  I  did  not  bring  home  the  river  and  sky  ; — 
He  sang  to  my  ear, — they  sang  to  my  eye.' 

And  now  he  has  spoilt  it.  Not  solely  because  he  has 
given  the  reason  ;  our  disillusionment  has  another 
cause :  we  at  once  reject  the  reason  as  insufficient. 
That  is  only  partially  true.  There  were  many  reasons, 
and  even  if  all  the  causes  of  difference  were  ex- 
haustively stated,  they  would  not  explain  the  sense 
of  difference.  It  is  strange  that  Emerson,  who  so 
constantly  tells  us  this,  should  err  in  this  way,  but  in 
this  way  he  is  constantly  erring. 

With  these  faults  admitted,  Emerson  is  often  much 
more  successful  than  here.  If  he  were  not,  I  should 
not  now,  and  for  my  present  purpose,  be  discussing 
his  poetry.  He  does  often  succeed  in  emotionalising 
matter  very  hard  to  emotionalise. 

But  before  discussing  his  occasional  but  very  numer- 
ous successes,  there  is  still  a  further  distinction  to  be 
drawn.  At  times  he  stops  short  of  emotion  and  is 
content  with  crystallisation.  To  this  department  of 
his  activity  belong  the  immortal  epigrams  : — 

'  For  gods  delight  in  gods, 

And  thrust  the  weak  aside  ; 
To  him  who  scorns  their  charities, 

Their  arms  fly  open  wide' ; 


160  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

the  reply  of  the  squirrel  to  the  mountain, — 

*  If  I  cannot  carry  forests  on  my  back, 
Neither  can  you  crack  a  nut ' ; 

the  recognition  of  the  reign  of  material  interests, — 

*  The  horseman  serves  the  horse, 
The  neatherd  serves  the  neat, 
The  merchant  serves  the  purse, 
The  eater  serves  his  meat ; 
'Tis  the  day  of  the  chattel, 

Web  to  weave,  and  corn  to  grind  ; 
Things  are  in  the  saddle, 
And  ride  mankind ' ; 

the  too  optimistic  pronouncement, — l 

*  Heartily  know, 
When  half-gods  go, 
The  gods  arrive ' ; 

the  testimonial  to  social  nature, — 

'  Man  was  made  of  social  earth, 
Child  and  brother  from  his  birth ' ; 

the  enthronement  of  the  humane  sentiment, — 

*  Fear  not,  then,  thou  child  infirm, 
There 's  no  god  dare  wrong  a  worm ' ; 

the  contemptuous  summary  of  the  worth  of  material 
things, — 


1  Too  optimistic  ;  for  nothing  is  easier  than  to  destroy  without 
building  up.  What  is  true  is  that  you  cannot  build  up  without 
destroying. 

*  When  the  gods  arrive 
The  half-gods  go,' 

but  this  would  not  have  tickled  the  ear  of  the  world. 


EMERSON  161 

'  Gold  and  iron  are  good 
To  buy  iron  and  gold.' 1 

In  all  these  there  is  no  emotion  ;  the  thought  is 
crystallised,  but  there  is  no  feeling  suffusing  the 
thought.  It  is  the  same  where  he  is  not  epigrammatic 
but  merely  concentrated,  as  in  the  mountain's  dis- 
missal of  the  cit : — 

'  Then,  at  last,  I  let  him  down 

Once  more  into  his  dapper  town, 

To  chatter,  frightened,  to  his  clan, 

And  forget  me  if  he  can ' ; 

or  when  Emerson  describes  existence, — 
'  Out  of  sleeping  a  waking, 
Out  of  waking  a  sleep  ; 
Life  death  overtaking  ; 
Deep  underneath  deep '  ; 

or  in   the   pregnant  counsel   to   the   man   who  would 
open  the  woods  with  the  memory  of  a  book, — 
'  Leave  all  thy  pedant  lore  apart ; 
God  hid  the  whole  world  in  thy  heart '  ; 


1  Once  or  twice  there  are  epigrams  expressly  written  as  epigrams  : 
'  The  sinful  painter  drapes  his  goddess  warm, 
Because  she  still  is  naked,  being  dressed  : 
The  godlike  sculptor  will  not  so  deform 
Beauty,  which  limbs  and  flesh  enough  invest.' 

He  is  appropriately  and  singularly  successful  in  translating  epigrams  : 

'  On  prince  or  bride  no  diamond  stone 
Half  so  gracious  ever  shone, 
As  the  light  of  enterprise 
Beaming  from  a  young  man's  eyes.' 

Which  is  so  happy  it  might  be  Emerson's  own. 

'  EPITAPH. 

Bethink,  poor  heart,  what  bitter  kind  of  jest 
Mad  Destiny  this  tender  stripling  played  ; 
For  a  warm  breast  of  maiden  to  his  breast, 
She  laid  a  slab  of  marble  on  his  head.' 

Which   plays  with   more  emotion   than   most   of   Emerson's   own 
epigrams. 

L 


162  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

or  where  he  speaks  of  his  boy's  education, — 

4 1  taught  thy  heart  beyond  the  reach 
Of  ritual,  bible,  or  of  speech '  ; 

or  refers  to  those 

*  Swains  that  live  in  happiness, 
And  do  well  because  they  please' ; l 

or  sums  up  the  beautiful  experiences  of  a  day, — 

1  Thus  far  to-day  your  favours  reach, 
O  fair,  appeasing  presences  ! 
Ye  taught  my  lips  a  single  speech, 
And  a  thousand  silences.' 

It  is  in  such  passages  that  the  calm,  penetrating 
intellect  finds  itself — finds  itself  in  this  often  sudden 
but  unhurried  concentration  of  aphoristic  thought ; 
and  this  calm,  penetrating  intellect  is  Emerson.  It  is 
not  the  whole  of  Emerson,  but  it  is  especially  himself. 
Weakness  in  this  very  Emersonian  habit  of  crystallisa- 
tion, of  course,  there  is.  One  patent  defect  of  it  is, 
that  as  there  is  in  it  no  emotion  to  generalise  or  to 
intensify  experience,  it  is  apt  to  run  away  into  over- 
particularisation.  It  is  apt  to  state  too  definitely,  even 
to  state  indefiniteness  definitely  : — 

'  As  sunbeams  stream  through  liberal  space, 
And  nothing  jostle  or  displace, 
So  waved  the  pine-tree  through  my  thought, 
And  fanned  the  dreams  it  never  brought.' 


1  Cp.  Wordsworth's 

*  who,  in  love  and  truth, 
Where  no  misgiving  is,  rely 
Upon  the  genial  sense  of  youth  ' : 

where  Wordsworth  has  not  merely  observed,  as  Emerson,  but  has 
sympathetically  felt  the  fact.     The  more  exact  parallel  is 
*  Glad  hearts,  without  reproach  or  blot, 
Who  do  thy  work  and  know  it  not.' 

But  this  is  no  better  than  Emerson's. 


EMERSON  163 

The  dreams  were  in  the  mind  of  the  percipient,  and 
not  brought  from  outside.  Nothing  could  be  simpler, 
but  the  definiteness  of  the  negation  disturbs  the  atten- 
tive mind  and  affects  it  like  a  volte-face. 

The  other  weakness  is  that  which  we  have  been 
considering — the  tendency,  or  rather  the  practice,  to 
be  contented  with  the  statement  without  feeling.  In 
a  little  thing  called  *  Eros'  Emerson  speaks  of  the 
sufficiency  of  Love  : — 

'  The  sense  of  the  world  is  short, — 
Long  and  various  the  report, — 

To  love  and  be  beloved  ; 
Men  and  gods  have  not  outlearned  it  ; 
And,  how  oft  soe'er  they've  turned  it, 

'Twill  not  be  improved.' 

This  is  a  simple  thought  concisely  stated,  so  concisely 
that  the  last  three  lines  are  unnecessary  ;  whereas  in 
FitzGerald's 

*  A  Book  of  Verses  underneath  the  Bough, 
A  Jug  of  Wine,  a  Loaf  of  Bread— and  Thou 

Beside  me  singing  in  the  Wilderness — 
Oh,  Wilderness  were  Paradise  enow  ! ' l 

the  simple  thought  is  sublimised.  Between  Emerson's 
conciseness  and  FitzGerald's  elevation  there  lies  the 
whole  difference  between  a  thought  that  is  merely 
perceived  and  a  thought  that  is  felt  to  be  true. 

And  it  is  this  which  constitutes  the  difference 
between  these  Emersonian  verses  and  the  Emersonian 
poetry  of  which  I  am  about  to  speak.  The  contrast 


1  Emerson  is  not  very  happy  with  Omar  Chiam,  as  he  calls  him — 
'  Each  spot  where  tulips  prank  their  state 
Has  drunk  the  life-blood  of  the  great ; 
The  violets  yon  field  which  stain 
Are  moles  of  beauties  time  hath  slain  ' ; 
which  recalls  other  verses. 


1 64  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

obviously  is  not  so  sharp.  FitzGerald's  quatrain  is 
an  outpouring  of  emotion  upon  an  emotional  subject. 
The  intellect  is  not  employed  at  all.  But  of  the  poetry 
to  which  I  now  proceed  to  advert,  the  whole  point  is 
that  it  is  primarily  and,  when  primarily,  exclusively 
occupied  with  the  subjects  of  the  intellectual  perception. 
I  have  not  now  to  deal  with  a  purely  emotional  poetry. 
Of  such  of  Emerson's  poetry  as  has  a  primary  emo- 
tional appeal,  and  it  is  very  limited  in  quantity,  I  have 
already  spoken,  just  as  I  have  concluded  speaking  of 
that  poetry  of  Emerson's  which  makes  no  emotional 
appeal  and  pretends  to  none.  What  remains  to  discuss 
is  Emerson's  power  of  apprehending  emotionally  matter 
that  is  intellectual.  His  power  in  this  respect  is  much 
greater  than  is  commonly  supposed,  since  it  is  exer- 
cised not  continuously  but  only  here  and  there. 

It  is  possible,  if  one  is  to  confine  oneself  to  whole 
poems,  to  represent  Emerson  as  an  emotional  poet 
by  a  reference  to  two  long  poems,  the  '  Threnody  '  and 
'  May  Day.'  To  do  so,  one  has  to  make  allowance  for 
some  roughness  of  representation  ;  but  it  is  possible. 
It  is  easily  possible  to  represent  Emerson  as  a  poet 
who  makes  no  appeal  to  emotion,  by  single  poems  and 
plenty  of  them.  But,  if  one  is  to  speak  of  him  as  a 
poet  at  once  intellectual  and  emotional,  one  has  to 
confine  oneself  to  passages,  often  quite  short  passages, 
sometimes  longer  but  never  of  very  great  length  : — 

*  Set  not  thy  foot  on  graves  : 
Hear  what  wine  and  roses  say.' 

That  is  Emerson  at  his  best.  There  is  probably  no 
one  else  who  could  have  written  it.  A  whole  philo- 
sophy of  life  and  a  cheerful  one — not  a  luxurious  one, 
the  negative  is  too  grave  for  that — is  expressed  in  two 


EMERSON  165 

lines,  and  it  is  expressed  feelingly,  but  the  poem  as  a 
whole  does  not  come  off. 

Again  a  discursive  poem,  always  about  to  clinch 
and  never  clinching,  ends  or  almost  ends  with  this 
immensity  : — 

4  Over  me  soared  the  eternal  sky, 
Full  of  light  and  of  deity.' 

In  this  division  of  Emerson's  poetry  are  many 
passages  in  *  Woodnotes,'  the  lineal  ancestor  of 
Meredith's  '  Woods  of  Westermain.'  To  the  true 
lover  of  Nature  the  life  of  the  woodland  appeals  as 
possessing  a  various  activity,  the  varied  spirit  of  which 
he  can  feel  : — 

'  He  saw  the  partridge  drum  in  the  woods  ; 
He  heard  the  woodcock's  evening  hymn  ; 
He  found  the  tawny  thrush's  broods  ; 
And  the  shy  hawk  did  wait  for  him.' 

The  creatures  are  not  afraid  of  him  who  *  foots  at 
peace  with  mouse  or  worm,'  and  if  he  is  not  afraid  he 
need  not  be  afraid  of  them  : — 

'  Whoso  walketh  in  solitude, 
And  inhabiteth  the  wood,  .  .  . 
On  him  the  light  of  star  and  moon 
Shall  fall  with  purer  radiance  down  ; 
All  constellations  of  the  sky 
Shed  their  virtue  through  his  eye. 
Him  Nature  giveth  for  defence 
His  formidable  innocence  ' ; 

or  as  in  another  place  it  is  expressed  more  explicitly  : — 

'  The  timid  it  concerns  to  ask  their  way, 
And  fear  what  foe  in  caves  and  swamps  can  stray, 
To  make  no  step  until  the  event  is  known, 
And  ills  to  come  as  evils  past  bemoan. 
Not  so  the  wise  ;  no  coward  watch  he  keeps 
To  spy  what  danger  on  his  pathway  creeps  ; 


166  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Go  where  he  will,  the  wise  man  is  at  home,1 
His  hearth  the  earth, — his  hall  the  azure  dome  ; 
Where  his  clear  spirit  leads  him,  there's  his  road, 
By  God's  own  light  illumined  and  foreshowed.' 

The  underlying  law  of  the  wood,  as  the  alert  intelli- 
gence observing  and  adding  perceives,  is  the  law  of 
'going  on.'  The  ceaseless  process  of  life  continues, 
and  if  one  lends  one's  ear  attentively  one  can  hear,  amid 
the  myriad  variety,  one  tune  : — 

'  Hearken  !  Hearken  ! 
If  thou  wouldst  know  the  mystic  song 
Chanted  when  the  sphere  was  young.   .  .  . 
To  the  open  ear  it  sings 
Sweet  the  genesis  of  things, 
Of  tendency  through  endless  ages, 
Of  star-dust,  and  star-pilgrimages, 
Of  rounded  worlds,  of  space  and  time, 
Of  the  old  flood's  subsiding  slime, 
Of  chemic  matter,  force,  and  form, 
Of  poles  and  powers,  cold,  wet,  and  warm  : 
The  rushing  metamorphosis, 
Dissolving  all  that  fixture  is, 
Melts  things  that  be  to  things  that  seem, 
And  solid  nature  to  a  dream.' 

And  of  this  ' metamorphosis,'  of  this  '  tendency 
through  endless  ages '  working  in  beauty  towards 
that  higher  beauty  which  is  good,  man  feels  himself  a 
part.  Nature  is  eloquent  to  man,  and  'a  ray  of 
relation  '  comes  to  him  from  everything  that  breathes  : — 

'  The  youth  reads  omens  where  he  goes, 
And  speaks  all  languages  the  rose. 
The  wood-fly  mocks  with  tiny  noise 
The  far  halloo  of  human  voice  ; 
The  perfumed  berry  on  the  spray 
Smacks  of  faint  memories  far  away. 


1  'Go  where  he  will,  the  wise  man  is  at  home.'     If  one  were  asked 
where  that  line  occurred,  one  would  say  '  The  Happy  Warrior.' 


EMERSON  167 

A  subtle  chain  of  countless  rings 
The  next  unto  the  farthest  brings, 
And,  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form.' l 

It  is  because  he  is  part  of  the  evolutionary  process,  the 
tendency,  a  process  never  completed  and  inexhaustible. 
Death  itself  is  a  part  of  this  process,  and  decay  a  fuel 
that  serves  to  nourish,  or,  in  Meredith's  words,  to 
brighten,  the  fire  of  renewal.  Emerson's  figure  is  more 
of  the  open  : — 

*  No  ray  is  dimmed,  no  atom  worn, 
My  oldest  force  is  good  as  new, 
And  the  fresh  rose  on  yonder  thorn 

Gives  back  the  bending  heavens  in  dew.' 

To  the  modern  man  mountain  scenery  has  an  especial 
appeal.  It  formed  and  strengthened  the  character  of 
Wordsworth.  In  comparing  the  influence  of  scenery 
upon  the  shape  of  the  mind  one  has  but  to  think  of 
Tennyson's  youth  spent  on  the  edge  of  the  Lincoln- 
shire fens,  and  how  he  '  used  to  stand  when  a  boy  on 
the  sandbuilt  ridge  at  Mablethorpe  and  think  that  it 
was  the  spine-bone  of  the  world.'  In  such  scenery  the 
adolescent  is  alone  with  the  Universe  ;  there  is  nothing 
but  himself  and  stars  and  sky.  But  against  this 
beckoning  horizon  of  vague  there  is  set,  in  a  wholly 
flat  country,  the  distinctness  of  such  objects  as  there 
are.  In  l  Mariana  in  the  Moated  Grange,'  the  cries  of 


1  '  May  Day.'     Elsewhere  Emerson  has  another  pregnant  phrase 
for  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  : — 

*  And  the  poor  grass  shall  plot  and  plan 
What  it  will  do  when  it  is  man.' — 'Bacchus.' 


1 68  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

animals,  and  the  trees,  become  more  definite  than  the 
landscape.  Tennyson  is  distinguished  as  a  poet  by  a 
peculiar  niceness  of  observation  joined  to  a  sense  of 
vastness.  He  sees  the  pattern  on  the  dresses  of  his 
ladies,  but  beyond  this  bright  world  there  is  the  deep. 
Compare  in  '  Mariana'  the  effect  of  the  waste  places  and 
the  distinctness  of  the  detail  of  life  against  them,  with 
Wordsworth's  shepherds,  moving  like  Greenland  giants 
against  the  splendid  definition  of  the  mountain.  To 
Wordsworth's  familiarity  with  mountain  scenery  is  to  be 
ascribed  his  delight  in  the  peak,  the  top,  the  finishing  ; 
there  is  to  be  ascribed  to  it  that  solidity  and  restfulness 
which  is  in  the  character  of  his  poems.  In  Tennyson, 
who  was  so  much  taken  up  with  life,  there  is  a  distinct 
mystic  vein.  Wordsworth's  sense  of  mystery  has 
nothing  elusive  about  it.  It  leads  from  reality  to 
reality.  The  reason  is  given  in  poetry  by  Emerson 
when  he  thus  addresses  the  mountain  Monadnoc  : — 

'  Thou  imagest  the  stable  good 
For  which  we  all  our  lifetime  grope, 
In  shifting  form  the  formless  mind, 
And  though  the  substance  us  elude, 
We  in  thee  the  shadow  find.' 

The  mountain  gives  stability  to  life,  and  is  necessary 
to  exclude  from  man's  constant  sight  the  vast  infinite, 
and  yet  this  infinite,  mirrored  in  space,  is  ever  and  again 
whispering  a  home-song  in  his  ear : — 

'  Daily  the  bending  skies  solicit  man, 
The  seasons  chariot  him  from  this  exile, 
The  rainbow  hours  bedeck  his  glowing  chair, 
The  storm-winds  urge  the  heavy  weeks  along, 
Suns  haste  to  set,  that  so  remoter  lights 
Beckon  the  wanderer  to  his  vaster  home.' 


EMERSON  169 

Man's  body  is  'an  engine  whose  motive  power  is  a 
soul,'  and  because  it  is  so  both  Finite  and  Infinite 
speak  to  him  in  turn.  He  is  immersed  in  terrestrial 
affairs,  when  suddenly 

'  a  sunset-touch 

A  fancy  from  a  flower-bell,  someone's  death, 
A  chorus-ending  from  Euripides,' l 

and  he  breathes  the  air  of  another  sphere. 

'  Sometimes  the  airy  synod  bends, 
And  the  mighty  choir  descends, 
And  the  brains  of  men  thenceforth, 
In  crowded  and  in  still  resorts, 
Teem  with  unwonted  thoughts  : 
As,  when  a  shower  of  meteors 
Cross  the  orbit  of  the  earth, 
And,  lit  by  fringent  air, 
Blaze  near  and  far, 
Mortals  deem  the  planets  bright 
Have  slipped  their  sacred  bars, 
And  the  lone  seaman  all  the  night 
Sails,  astonished,  amid  stars.' 

These  emotions,  of  which  these  passages  speak,  are 
not,  some  may  say,  difficult  to  poeticalise.  The  religion 
of  the  modern  man  may  not  be  a  definite  religion,  still  it 
is  a  religion,  and  all  religion  is  emotional. 

The  answer  is  supplied  by  the  rarity  of  the  occasions 
on  which  it  has  been  done.  Not  to  say  too  much  is 
the  most  difficult  art,  and  these  passages  depend  for 
their  verity  upon  this  art. 

But  Emerson  can  poeticalise  things  harder  still  ; 
he  can  poeticalise  politics  ;  for  example,  the  working 
creed  of  Liberalism  : — 


Bishop  Blougram's  Apology.' 


170  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

'God  said,  I  am  tired  of  kings, 

I  suffer  them  no  more  ; 
Up  to  my  ear  the  morning  brings 
The  outrage  of  the  poor.' 1 

Characterisation,  too,  yields  to  this  power  of  his.  Take 
this  passage,  descriptive  at  once  of  the  attraction  of 
the  gipsy  life  to  the  gipsies,  and  of  their  claim  to  live 
the  true  life  of  the  planet,  which  is  out  of  doors  : — 

'The  wild  air  bloweth  in  our  lungs, 

The  keen  stars  twinkle  in  our  eyes, 
The  birds  give  us  our  wily  tongues, 
The  panther  in  our  dances  flies.' 

If  this  is  not  poetry,  what  is  poetry  ;  and  what  town- 
dweller  after  this  does  not  see  a  gipsy  with  a  kind  of 
forlorn  respect? 

'The  wild  air  bloweth  in  our  lungs.' 

Nothing  as  fine  as  that,  of  course,  can  be  said  on  so 
thin  a  subject  as  'The  Humble-Bee,'  ' yellow-breeched 
philosopher ' ;  but  the  whole  life  of  the  bee  is  sym- 
pathetically presented  : — 

'  Burly,  dozing  humble-bee, 
Where  thou  art  is  clime  for  me. 


1  Or  equally  beautifully  of  the  undefeatable  Freedom— 

'  Who  gives  to  seas  and  sunset  skies 
Their  unspent  beauty  of  surprise.' 

Emerson  is  telling  of  a  memorable  defeat  : — 

'  The  Cossack  eats  Poland, 
Like  stolen  fruit ; 
Her  last  noble  is  ruined, 
Her  last  poet  mute  : 
Straight  into  double  band 
The  victors  divide ; 
Half  for  freedom  strike  and  stand  ; — 
The  astonished  Muse  finds  thousands  at  her  side.' 


EMERSON  171 

Let  them  sail  for  Porto  Rique, 
Far-off  heats  through  seas  to  seek  ; 
I  will  follow  thee  alone, 
Thou  animated  torrid-zone  ! 
Zigzag  steerer,  desert  cheerer, 
Let  me  chase  thy  waving  lines  : 
Keep  me  nearer,  me  thy  hearer, 
Singing  over  shrubs  and  vines.' 

There  is  presented  here  something  of  the  intoxication 
of  freedom  which  belongs  to  any  life  preoccupied  with 
its  own  business  and  indifferent  to  all  else.  Human 
life,  too,  affords  moments  like  that,  when  we  '  float  at 
pleasure  through  all  Nature/  moments  when  we  seem 
to  have  drunk  wine  '  which  never  grew  in  the  belly  of 
the  grape.'  But  this  human  intoxication  reaches  higher 
than  the  bee's  ;  the  mind  subject  to  it  is  not  merely 
free  to  attend  to  its  own  business  but  to  that  of  every 
one,  to  remould  the  world  nearer  to  its  desire.  It  is 
then,  when  the  imagination  soars,  everything  seems  in 
harmony,  all  obstacles  fall  away,  the  struggles  of  the 
spirit  in  a  material  environment,  death  and  time.  One's 
step  is  once  more  elastic,  and  one  feels  as  one  felt 
in  the  first  waking  rapture  of  the  boy.  With  what 
propriety  does  Emerson  call  to  this  Bacchus  of  the 
soul  to 

*  Refresh  the  faded  tints, 
Recut  the  aged  prints, 
And  write  my  old  adventures  with  the  pen 
Which  on  the  first  day  drew, 
Upon  the  tablets  blue, 
The  dancing  Pleiads  and  eternal  men.' 

One's  youth  is  lost,  and  with  it  the  limitless  creative 
daring  of  fancy.  Yet  to  the  seeing  eye  life  itself  dis- 
closes itself  as  wonderful.  Fancy  cannot  conceive  a 


172  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

beauty  rarer  than  that  which  to  Seyd,  the  true  poet, 
opens  everywhere  : — 

1  Was  never  form  and  never  face 
So  sweet  to  Seyd  as  only  grace 
Which  did  not  slumber  like  a  stone, 
But  hovered  gleaming  and  was  gone. 
Beauty  chased  he  everywhere, 
In  flame,  in  storm,  in  clouds  of  air. 
He  smote  the  lake  to  feed  his  eye 
With  the  beryl  beam  of  the  broken  wave  ; 
He  flung  in  pebbles  well  to  hear1 
The  moment's  music  which  they  gave.3 

The  true  poet  is  aware  of  this  miracle  which  is  life, 
.and  walks  abroad  like  a  man  in  a  dream,  because  he  is 
the  one  man  truly  alive  : — 

*  He  would,  yet  would  not,  counsel  keep, 
But,  like  a  walker  in  his  sleep 

With  staring  eye  that  seeth  none, 
Ridiculously  up  and  down 
Seeks  how  he  may  fitly  tell 
The  heart-o'erlading  miracle.' 

The  true  poet  is  possessed  with  a  sense  of  this  beauty 
which  is  everywhere,  and  where  it  is  not,  is  : — 

'And  on  his  mind  at  dawn  of  day 
Soft  shadows  of  the  evening  lay.5 

He  hears  and  sees  what  others  do  not  mark : — 

'His  music  was  the  south-wind's  sigh, 
His  lamp,  the  maiden's  downcast  eye.' 

*  He  should  be  loved  ;  he  should  be  hated ' ; — 

*  A  blooming  child  to  children  dear, 
His  heart  should  palpitate  with  fear,' 

because  he  alone  is  conscious  (and  thus  to  other  men  a 
disturbing  influence)  that  he  walks  amid  mystery. 
Life  that  seems  so  real  is  in  reality  built  up  of  illusion. 


How  like  the  style  of  Meredith  ! 


EMERSON  173 

We  pursue  a  hope  never  to  catch  it,  for  to  come  up  with 
it  is  to  recognise  it  no  longer  as  a  hope.  When  we 
reach  it  another  airy  beckoner  leads  us  on.  Indeed, 
we  never  realise  our  ideals  ;  we  can  reach  those  we  do 
attain  only  when  we  are  reaching  past  them  ;  there  are 
forerunners  always  for  the  living  spirit,  and  when  he 
ceases  to  hear  their  distant  music  the  man  is  dead. 
But  how  much  clearer  Emerson  makes  this  by  leaving 
it  less  clear  : — 

*  Long  I  followed  happy  guides, 
I  could  never  reach  their  sides  ; 
Their  step  is  forth,  and,  ere  the  day, 
Breaks  up  their  leaguer,  and  away. 
Keen  my  sense,  my  heart  was  young, 
Right  good-will  my  sinews  strung, 
But  no  speed  of  mine  avails 
To  hunt  upon  their  shining  trails. 
On  and  away,  their  hasting  feet 
Make  the  morning  proud  and  sweet ; 
Flowers  they  strew, — I  catch  the  scent  ; 
Or  tone  of  silver  instrument 
Leaves  on  the  wind  melodious  trace  ; 
Yet  I  could  never  see  their  face.' 

The  explanation  of  this  is  that  man's  nature  is 
infinite,  and  that  he  is  (in  his  finite  limitation)  at  once 
mocked  and  fed  by  infinite  ideas.  He,  the  one,  is  a 
part  of  the  All,  and  the  one  part  that  can  recognise  the 
All.  Some  breath  from  the  Infinite  Nature,  as  man 
alone  discerns,  mixes  with  the  life  of  everything.  There 
is  an  Identity,  to  which  men  give  the  highest  name, 
behind  each  variety,  or  as  Emerson  has  it  in  the  poem 
called  '  Brahma ' : — 

4  If  the  red  slayer  think  he  slays, 

Or  if  the  slain  think  he  is  slain, 
They  know  well  the  subtle  ways 
I  keep,  and  pass,  and  turn  again 


174  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Far  or  forgot  to  me  is  near  ; 

Shadow  and  sunlight  are  the  same  ; 
The  vanquished  gods  to  me  appear ; 

And  one  to  me  are  shame  and  fame. 

They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out  ; 

When  me  they  fly,  I  am  the  wings  ; 
I  am  the  doubter  and  the  doubt, 

And  I  the  hymn  the  Brahmin  sings.' 

Is  it  easy  to  write  like  this,  or  to  explain  the  modern 
mind  to  itself?  For  the  key  to  the  modern  mind  is  that 
it  is  at  once  intensely  religious  and  intensely  anti- 
dogmatic  : — 

'  Thou  shalt  not  try 
To  plant  thy  shrivelled  pedantry 
On  the  shoulders  of  the  sky,' 

or,  in  other  words,  the  modern  mind  has  at  once  a  clear 
apprehension  of  the  Infinite,  and  a  clear  recognition 
of  'the  shadow  of  surrounding  cloud.'  It  has  long 
ceased  to  put  its  trust  in  the  fact,  '  the  supposed  fact,'1 
and  knows  now  that  if  it  is  to  be  saved  it  can  only  be 
saved  by  the  idea.  The  way  of  salvation  is  indeed 
hard,  for  the  same  mind  that  thus  puts  its  trust  in  ideas 
must  have  capacity  to  know  that  those  ideas,  in  which 
it  lives,  are  in  truth  no  more  than  its  own  ideas,  dreams 
of  the  subject,  and  not  true  objects  at  all : — 

*  The  lords  of  life,  the  lords  of  life,— 
I  saw  them  pass, 
In  their  own  guise, 
Like  and  unlike, 
Portly  and  grim, — 
Use  and  Surprise, 
Surface  and  Dream, 
Succession  swift  and  spectral  Wrong, 


1  Arnold.     Introduction  to  Mr.  T.  H.  Ward's  Selections  from  the 
English  Poets. 


EMERSON  175 

Temperament  without  a  tongue, 
And  the  inventor  of  the  game 
Omnipresent  without  name  ; — 
Some  to  see,  some  to  be  guessed, 
They  march  from  east  to  west  : 
Little  man,  least  of  all, 
Among  the  legs  of  his  guardians  tall, 
Walked  about  with  puzzled  look. 
Him  by  the  hand  dear  Nature  took, 
Dearest  Nature,  strong  and  kind, 
Whispered,  "  Darling,  never  mind  ! 
To-morrow  they  will  wear  another  face, 
The  founder  thou  ;  these  are  thy  race  ! "' 

And  yet  those  ideas  which  proceed  from  man,  the 
offspring  of  his  brain,  are  themselves  the  proof  of  a 
nature  competent  to  comprehend  the  Universal  show, 
and  to  entertain  it  as  a  guest.  We  dream  true  when 
we  dream  and  see  behind  substance  something  as  fluid 
as  our  thoughts,  and  of  nature  akin  to  them.  We  are 
the  thought  of  Existence,  and  all  existence  is  subject 
to  our  thought.  The  whole  lives  in  its  parts,  and  its 
parts  revivify  the  whole. 

In  this  philosophy  there  is  no  creed,  and  the  best 
learning  is  an  apprehending. 

*  Wilt  thou  not  ope  thy  heart  to  know 
What  rainbows  teach,  and  sunsets  show  ? ' 

What  consolation  there  is  for  us  is  to  be  found  in 
acceptance,  in  an  acquiescence  in  the  course  of  an 
activity  which  certainly  we  do  not  understand  but  to 
which  we  also,  being  at  once  lawmakers  and  subject  to 
the  law,  contribute  our  part : — 

'  I  see  the  inundation  sweet, 
I  hear  the  spending  of  the  stream 
Through  years,  through  men,  through  nature  fleet, 
Through  passion,  thought,  through  power  and  dream.' 


176  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

1  They  lose  their  grief  who  hear  this  song  ' ;  and  it  is 
heard  by  quite  small  things,  such  as  the  Titmouse, 
brave  in  its  own  life,  that  sang  in  the  winter  wood  to 
the  desponding  poet : — 

'  Here  was  this  atom  in  full  breath, 
Hurling  defiance  at  vast  death.' 

In  fact  life,  wherever  you  meet  it,  is  brave.  It  feels — 
the  Titmouse,  or  Jenny  Wren,  even  the  London 
sparrow,  that  it  is  in  a  Universe  of  Life  and  conse- 
quently at  home. 

It  is  only  man  deceived  by  the  loss  of  friends,  and 
with  his  vision  that  takes  in  past  and  future,  who 
recoils  from  the  Law.  He  sees  the  end,  or  fears  the  end 
of  his  own  activity,  and  forgets  that  activity  continues. 
And  certainly  it  points  a  contrast — dead  tinder  and 
living  flame — that  man  so  infinite  in  capacity  should  be 
enclosed  in  so  little  room  : — 

'A  TRAIN  of  gay  and  clouded  days 
Dappled  with  joy  and  grief  and  praise, 
Beauty  to  fire  us,  saints  to  save, 
Escort  us  to  a  little  grave.' 


ARNOLD  177- 


ARNOLD 

OF  all  Arnold's  dicta  on  the  subject  of  Literature  his 
statement  about  Poetry  is  the  best  known  : — '  It  is 
important,  therefore,  to  hold  fast  to  this,  that  Poetry  is 
at  bottom  a  criticism  of  life  ;  that  the  greatness  of  a 
poet  lies  in  his  powerful  and  beautiful  application  of 
ideas  to  life — to  the  question  how  to  live.'1 

The  first  remark  that  suggests  itself — it  is  so  obvious 
that  I  cannot  avoid  making  it — is  that  this  is  a  defini- 
tion of  Poetry  which  does  not  distinguish  poetry  from 
prose.  Carlyle's  character  sketch  of  Coleridge,  in  his 
life  of  Sterling,  is  very  obviously  at  bottom  a  criticism 
of  life,  and  it  has  nothing  more  poetical  about  it  than 
caustic  irony  usually  has. 

Arnold  himself  came  to  acknowledge  this,  and  in  a 
later  essay  he  qualified  his  dictum  accordingly  : — '  For 
supreme  poetical  success  more  is  required  than  the 
powerful  application  of  ideas  to  life  ;  it  must  be  applica- 
tion under  the  conditions  fixed  by  the  laws  of  poetic 
truth  and  beauty.'2  And  no  doubt,  with  this  qualifica- 
tion, what  Arnold  here  says  of  Poetry  is  true  in  a 
general  sense.  A  good  many  things  that  can  be  said 
about  Poetry  are  true  in  a  general  sense. 

Poetry  is  at  bottom  a  representation  of  life.  Is  this 
true?  Yes,  it  is  true  in  a  general  sense. 

1  Essay  on  Wordsworth  prefixed  to  the  volume  of  selections. 

2  Introduction     to    The   English    Poets^    selections     edited    by 
T.  H.  Ward. 

M 


178  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

In  this  general  wide  sense  then,  in  this  loose  sense, 
it  is  true  to  say  Poetry  is  a  criticism  of  life  ;  it  is  one 
of  the  true  things  that  can  be  said  about  Poetry.  Each 
man's  life  is  his  implicit  criticism  of  human  life.  A 
monk  shows  us  by  his  conduct  that  he  thinks  of  human 
life  as  providing  leisure  for  fasting  and  prayer  ;  a  pretty 
girl  by  hers  that  it  gives  occasion  for  balls  and  dress  ; 
a  drunkard  thinks  human  life  affords  opportunity  for 
the  vine.  From  the  conduct  of  these  people  we  know 
what  they  think  worth  while  in  life,  or  what  in  life  is 
pleasurable  to  them.  We  know  what  would  be  their 
judgment  or  criticism  on  life  if  they  stopped  to 
pass  one. 

In  the  same  way  every  poet's  poetry  has,  implied  in 
it,  a  criticism  of  life.  What  he  celebrates,  what  he 
passes  by,  how  and  when  he  feels,  these  tell  us  what  he 
really  thinks  about  life. 

Thus  when  Hamlet  is  dying  he  says  to  Horatio  :  Do 
not  commit  suicide,  but  live  on  to  tell  my  story  ;  and 
he  says  it  in  this  way  : — 

'  Absent  thee  from  felicity  awhile.' 

The  mists  of  death  which  *  o'er-crow  the  spirit,'  that 
against  which  the  physical  body  rebels,  may,  when 
compared  to  the  world  so  harsh  to  Hamlet,  be  described 
as  felicity.1  Hamlet  speaking  of  death  in  such  terms 
is  Hamlet  criticising  life.  It  was  good  to  be  gone. 


1  It  may  be  said  that  Hamlet's  'felicity'  is  merely  a  mode  of  say- 
ing '  Heaven '  or  '  the  abode  of  the  blessed,'  a  picturesque  and 
poetical  way,  and  so  it  is.  But  why  should  Heaven  figure  to 
Shakespeare  just  at  this  moment  and  nowhere  else  in  his  plays  as 
especially  the  abode  of '  felicity '  ?  Modes  of  phrase  are  dictated  by 
modes  of  feeling,  and,  when  Shakespeare  wrote  it,  he  was  sym- 
pathetically./^//^ the  rest  to  which  Hamlet  was  going. 


ARNOLD  179 

Again  Wordsworth,  reflecting  on  the  short  life  of  a 
flower,  how  soon  it  withers,  and  how  gay  and  shining 
it  is  when  first  it  begins  to  blow,  cries  out : — 

'  O  man,  that  from  thy  fair  and  shining  youth 
Age  might  but  take  the  things  youth  needed  not.3 1 

And  Carew,  who  is  not  a  didactic  poet,  opens  a  poem 
in  this  way  : — 

'  He  that  loves  a  rosy  cheek 
Or  a  coral  lip  admires.' 

From  these  different  sayings  we  form  a  fairly  accurate 
idea  of  the  differing  ways  in  which  their  authors  viewed 
life,  and  of  the  kind  of  criticism  which,  had  they  been 
called  upon  to  do  so,  and  Wordsworth  does  generally 
feel  himself  called  upon,  they  would  have  passed 
upon  it. 

It  is  true  then,  and  worth  saying,  that  all  poetry  is  a 
criticism  of  life,  expresses  the  poet's  view  of  life,  and 
that  by  his  view  of  life  his  poetry  ultimately  will  be  in 
great  part  judged.  If  it  is  a  very  ignoble  view,  his 
poetry,  even  if  it  contains  great  passion  and  great  fire, 
will  not  be  very  great. 

This  is  to  say  that  Arnold's  famous  statement  is  true, 
in  a  general  sense,  of  all  poetry. 

But  it  is  much  more  than  true  in  a  general  sense  ;  it 
is  precisely  true  when  applied  to  his  own  poetry.  A 
very  great  proportion  of  Arnold's  poetry  is  occupied 
with  passing  actual  judgments  on  life  or  portions  of 
life — youth,  age — or  aspects  of  life — literature,  society, 
religion  ;  a  very  great  proportion  is  occupied  with 
passing  judgments  as  direct  as  that  judgment  of  Words- 


The  Small  Celandine.3 


i8o  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

worth's  evoked  by  the  lesser  celandine.  And  even  when 
Arnold  is  not  thus  occupied  his  attitude  generally  is 
critical  ;  at  any  rate  it  is  intellectually  reflective.  He 
does  not  merely  respond  to  life,  he  does  not  merely 
interpret  life,  he  reflects  upon  life. 

Generally  speaking,  the  critical  poet,  the  poet  who  is 
always  criticising,  does  not  write  poetry  at  all :  though 
he  expresses  himself  in  verse,  he  writes  prose.  Long 
before  his  considering  is  done,  all  the  fire,  gush,  and 
spontaneity  of  his  thought  has  departed.  But  what 
makes  the  peculiarity  of  Arnold's  poetry  is  that  this  is 
not  so.  He  is  a  genuine  poet,  and  at  his  best,  and  he 
is  very  often  at  his  best,  he  feels  pre-eminently  as  a 
poet.  His  reflective  habit  does  not  displace  his  feeling, 
it  is  added  to  it ;  nor  does  it  whittle  it  away  in  detail. 
What  happens  is  that  his  reflective  habit  cools  and 
expands  his  feeling  ;  he  is  long  on  one  note,  but  the 
feeling  is  there  behind  his  verses  and  informing  them. 

Arnold,  at  his  best,  is  a  reflective  poet  and  a  very 
great  reflective  poet.  With  this  said,  it  remains  to  be 
said  that  there  is  a  very  great  deal  of  Arnold's  poetry 
which  is  just  criticism  in  verse  ;  admirable  criticism, 
and  criticism  very  tersely  expressed,  expressed  with  all 
the  epigramatic  terseness  of  verse. 

Here  is  a  criticism  of  Heine  : — 

1  The  Spirit  of  the  world, 
Beholding  the  absurdity  of  men — 
Their  vaunts,  their  feats — let  a  sardonic  smile, 
For  one  short  moment,  wander  o'er  his  lips  ; 
That  smile  was  Heine  ! ' 

It  is  not  often,  of  course,  that  the  criticism  is  ex- 
pressed so  barely,  with  so  little  sentiment  in  it ;  on  the 
contrary  what  is  remarkable  is  how  seldom,  even  when 


ARNOLD  181 

it  is  explicit  criticism,  it  is  really  unpoetical,  how 
seldom  it  occurs  without  some  admixture  of  feel- 
ing. But  before  discussing  this  further,  let  us  con- 
sider how  much,  and  how  much  memorable  criticism 
there  is. 

There  are  a  few  passages  of  literary  criticism  that 
will  suggest  themselves  to  every  memory  : — 

*  Time  may  restore  us  in  his  course 
Goethe's  sage  mind  and  Byron's  force  ; 
But  where  will  Europe's  latter  hour 
Again  find  Wordsworth's  healing  power  ? ' 

or  this  on  Byron, — 

'our  soul 
'  Had  felt  him  like  the  thunder's  roll ' ; 

or  again,— 

'  What  helps  it  now,  that  Byron  bore, 
With  haughty  scorn  that  mock'd  the  smart, 
Through  Europe  to  the  ^Etolian  shore, 
The  pageant  of  his  bleeding  heart?' 

or  the  following  passage  from  the  poem  on  the  odd 
subject,  an  odd  subject  for  a  poem,  of  Lessing's 
Laocoon.  What  is  the  poet's  sphere?  asks  Arnold 
in  his  '  Epilogue  to  Lessing's  Laocoon  ' : — 

*  "  Behold,  at  last  the  poet's  sphere  ! 
But  who,"  I  said,  "suffices  here? 
For,  ah  !  so  much  he  has  to  do ; 
Be  painter  and  musician  too  ! 
The  aspect  of  the  moment  show, 
The  feeling  of  the  moment  know  ! 
The  aspect  not,  I  grant,  express 
Clear  as  the  painter's  art  can  dress  ; 
The  feeling  not,  I  grant,  explore 
So  deep  as  the  musician's  lore — 
But  clear  as  words  can  make  revealing, 
And  deep  as  words  can  follow  feeling. 


1 82  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

But,  ah  !  then  comes  his  sorest  spell 

Of  toil — he  must  life's  movement  tell ! 

The  thread  which  binds  it  all  in  one, 

And  not  its  separate  parts  alone. 

The  movement  he  must  tell  of  life, 

Its  pain  and  pleasure,  rest  and  strife  ; 

His  eye  must  travel  down,  at  full, 

The  long,  unpausing  spectacle  ; 

With  faithful  unrelaxing  force 

Attend  it  from  its  primal  source, 

From  change  to  change  and  year  to  year 

Attend  it  of  its  mid  career, 

Attend  it  to  the  last  repose 

And  solemn  silence  of  its  close/ 

Or  take  this  flash  of  religious  criticism,  attacking  the 
anthropomorphism  of  the  time,  and  praising  the  author 
of  Obermann,  who 

'  Neither  made  man  too  much  a  God, 
Nor  God  too  much  a  man ' ; 

or  this  piece  of  vital  criticism  complaining  of  what,  to 
the  thinker,  is  the  worst  insult  of  old  age, — 

'  To  hear  the  world  applaud  the  hollow  ghost 
Which  blamed  the  living  man  ' ; 

or  this  piece  of  social  criticism  explaining  Arnold's 
sense  of 

'  This  strange  disease  of  modern  life, 
With  its  sick  hurry,  its  divided  aims,' 

where  he  says — 

'  But  we,  brought  forth  and  rear'd  in  hours 
Of  change,  alarm,  surprise — 
What  shelter  to  grow  ripe  is  ours, 
What  leisure  to  grow  wise?' 

What  leisure  to  see  like  Sophocles, 

*  Who  saw  life  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole.' 


ARNOLD  183 

There  is  in  us,  as  there  was  in  the  actress  Rachel,  a 
mixture  in  the  soul,  a  strife  of  various  influences  : — 

'  In  her,  like  us,  there  clash'd  contending  powers, 
Germany,  France,  Christ,  Moses,  Athens,  Rome.' 

Arnold,  then,  in  his  verse  production  figures  as  a 
critic,  as  a  literary,  social,  and  religious  critic,  and 
this  he  does  whether  he  is  or  is  not  writing  poetry. 
Perhaps  the  best  instance  of  his  success  as  a  poetical 
critic,  a  critic  speaking  in  poetry,  is  that  sonnet  in 
which  he  rebuked  an  excited  preacher  who  called  upon 
his  audience  to  live  in  harmony  with  Nature  : — 

*"  In  harmony  with  Nature?"  Restless  fool, 
Who  with  such  heat  dost  preach  what  were  to  thee, 
When  true,  the  last  impossibility — 
To  be  like  Nature  strong,  like  Nature  cool ! 
Know,  man  hath  all  which  Nature  hath,  but  more, 
And  in  that  more  lie  all  his  hopes  of  good. 
Nature  is  cruel,  man  is  sick  of  blood  ; 
Nature  is  stubborn,  man  would  fain  adore  ; 
Nature  is  fickle,  man  hath  need  of  rest ; 
Nature  forgives  no  debt,  and  fears  no  grave  ; 
Man  would  be  mild,  and  with  safe  conscience  blest. 
Man  must  begin,  know  this,  where  Nature  ends  ; 
Nature  and  man  can  never  be  fast  friends. 
Fool,  if  thou  canst  not  pass  her,  rest  her  slave  !' 

It  is  an  admirable  instance  of  Arnold's  success  as  a 
poetical  critic,  because,  though  the  criticism  is  there, 
it  is  poetically  expressed,  poetically  felt.  There  is  not 
only  criticism  but  criticism  presented  poetically,  so 
poetically  that  we  hardly  feel  we  are  listening  to  criti- 
cism ;  at  least  we  begin  to  feel  we  are  not.  We  can  see 
the  poet,  the  man  who  feels,  getting  on  terms  with  the 
critic,  the  man  who  thinks.  And  in  what  Arnold  says 
about  the  poet's  province,  in  the  verses  called  '  Resigna- 
tion,' we  see  this  even  more  clearly.  Indeed,  here, 


1 84  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

though  the  attitude  is  critical  and  the  critical  mind  is 
still  thoroughly  alert,  the  result  expressed  is  not  the 
expression  of  criticism,  but  the  expression  of  feeling. 
It  is  the  kind  of  poetry  that  gets  itself  written  by  a  man 
capable  of  the  nicest  shades  of  discernment,  but  it  is 
not  consciously  critical.  In  this  way  a  deeply  critical 
nature,  in  this  way  a  highly  refined  nature  given  to 
refining,  in  this  way  such  a  nature  feels  : — 

'The  poet,  to  whose  mighty  heart 
Heaven  does  a  quicker  pulse  impart, 
Subdues  that  energy  to  scan 
Not  his  own  course,  but  that  of  man. 
Though  he  move  mountains,  though  his  day 
Be  pass'd  on  the  proud  heights  of  sway, 
Though  he  hath  loosed  a  thousand  chains, 
Though  he  hath  borne  immortal  pains, 
Action  and  suffering  though  he  know — 
He  hath  not  lived,  if  he  lives  so. 
He  sees,  in  some  great-historied  land, 
A  ruler  of  the  people  stand, 
Sees  his  strong  thought  in  fiery  flood 
Roll  through  the  heaving  multitude, 
Exults — yet  for  no  moment's  space 
Envies  the  all-regarded  place. 
Beautiful  eyes  meet  his — and  he 
Bears  to  admire  uncravingly  ; 
They  pass — he,  mingled  with  the  crowd, 
Is  in  their  far-off  triumphs  proud. 
From  some  high  station  he  looks  down, 
At  sunset,  on  a  populous  town  ; 
Surveys  each  happy  group  which  fleets, 
Toil  ended,  through  the  shining  streets, 
Each  with  some  errand  of  its  own — 
And  does  not  say  :  I  am  alone. 
He  sees  the  gentle  stir  of  birth 
When  morning  purifies  the  earth  ; 
He  leans  upon  a  gate,  and  sees 
The  pastures,  and  the  quiet  trees. 
Low  woody  hill  with  gracious  bound 
Folds  the  still  valley  almost  round  ; 


ARNOLD  185 

The  cuckoo,  loud  on  some  high  lawn, 

Is  answer'd  from  the  depths  of  dawn  ; 

In  the  hedge  straggling  to  the  stream, 

Pale,  dew-drench'd,  half-shut  roses  gleam  ; 

And,1  where  the  farther  side  slopes  down, 

He  sees  the  drowsy  new-waked  clown 

In  his  white  quaint-embroider'd  frock 

Make,  whistling,  toward  his  mist-wreathed  flock — 

Slowly,  behind  his  heavy  tread, 

The  wet,  flower'd  grass  heaves  up  its  head. 

Lean'd  on  his  gate,  he  gazes — tears 

Are  in  his  eyes,  and  in  his  ears 

The  murmur  of  a  thousand  years. 

Before  him  he  sees  life  unroll, 

A  placid  and  continuous  whole — 

That  general  life,  which  does  not  cease, 

Whose  secret  is  not  joy,  but  peace  ; 

That  life,  whose  dumb  wish  is  not  miss'd 

If  birth  proceeds,  if  things  subsist ; 

The  life  of  plants,  and  stones,  and  rain, 

The  life  he  craves — if  not  in  vain 

Fate  gave,  what  chance  shall  not  control, 

His  sad  lucidity  of  soul.'2 


1  Arnold  has  'But,'  but  surely  the  sense  requires  'And.'     There  is 
no  opposition,  there  is  merely  a  succession  of  things  seen. 

2  The  tone  of  this  is  more  Emersonian  than  is  usual  with  Arnold. 
'Sad   lucidity'  is   an   Arnoldian,   but   'lucidity   of  soul'   a   strictly 
Emersonian  phrase.      One  is  tempted    to   think  Arnold   had  just 
laid    down    the  volume   of  'Poems,'    1846.      In    that  volume  the 
second  poem  is  '  Each  and  All,'  which  begins  : — 

4  Little  thinks,  in  the  field,  yon  red-cloaked  clown, 
Of  thee  from  the  hill-top  looking  down  ; 
The  heifer  that  lows  in  the  upland  farm, 
Far -heard,  lows  not  thine  ear  to  charm  ' ; 

and  it  ends — 

*  Again  I  saw,  again  I  heard, 
The  rolling  river,  the  morning  bird  ; — 
Beauty  through  my  senses  stole  ; 
I  yielded  myself  to  the  perfect  whole. ' 

The  poem  is  not  about  a  poet,  but  about  the  relation  of  each  to 
.all.     Yet  the  resemblances  are  curious.     In  each  there  is  the  looker- 


1 86  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Arnold  is  at  once  a  critical  poet  and  a  reflective  poet ;, 
and  one  can  see  from  those  two  examples  how  criticism 
shades  off  into  reflection,  and  meditation  into  feeling. 
In  reading  this  passage  from  '  Resignation '  we  feel 
that  we  have  been  reading  poetry.  It  is  the  feeling 
with  which  it  is  surcharged  that  strikes  home.  No  one 
can  read  that  passage  and  remain  quite  the  same 
man  as  he  was  before.  To  agree  ,with  a  critic  does 
not  involve  a  change  in  the  mind?  No,  but  to  feel 
with  a  poet  does. 

Indeed  Arnold  is  quite  uniquely  successful  as  a  critical 
poet.  He  attempts  generally  things  much  less  hard 
than  Emerson  and  Meredith  ;  but  constantly  when  he 
attempts  to  make  poetry  out  of  critical  material,  he 
makes  it.  The  passage  just  cited,  for  example,  is 
less  general  and  more  detailed  in  its  reference  than 
Emerson's  '  Each  and  All.'  This  definition  of  the 
poet's  attitude  to  things  is  the  hardest  thing  in  poetry 
that  Arnold  attempts,  but  one  has  only  to  compare  it 
with  Emerson's  poem  which  deals  with  a  comparatively 
easy  subject  on  which  to  make  poetry,  to  know  which 
is  more  basically  a  poet.  Arnold's  fund  of  poetical 
sensibility  is  so  great  that  it  overrides  obstacles. 

I   do   not    mean    to    claim   for  Arnold    that    he   is 


on  and  in  each  the  '  clown.'  In  each  the  looker-on  looks  from  a 
hill.  The  panorama  is  below  him.  In  each  the  looker-on  has  no 
part  in  the  panorama,  and  in  each,  final  consolation  is  found  in  the 
continuance  of  the  process  : — 

*  The  rolling  river,  the  morning  bird  ' 
in  Emerson,  and  in  Arnold 

'That  general  life  which  does  not  cease,' 
and 

The  life  of  plants,  and  stones,  and  rain.' 


ARNOLD  187 

always  successful — many  of  the  verses  in  the  parts 
of  l  Resignation '  not  here  quoted  are  not  poetry  at 
all — but  he  is  constantly  successful,  and  when  he  is 
successful,  he  is  supremely  successful : — 

*  Lean'd  on  his  gate,  he  gazes — tears 
Are  in  his  eyes,  and  in  his  ears 
The  murmur  of  a  thousand  years.' 

That  is  not  only  an  exact  statement  of  the  full  content 
of  the  poet's  attitude  to  life  as  a  whole  ;  it  has  the 
whole  of  the  poet's  emotion  in  it.  Here  is  a  bit  of 
aesthetics  made  into  what  is  very  nearly  the  highest 
poetry,  poetry  so  potent  that  it  can  change,  and  has 
changed  for  many,  the  individual's  relation  to  existence. 

If  I  seem  to  labour  this  point  needlessly,  it  is  because 
this  side  of  Arnold's  achievement  is  far  and  away  the 
most  important  thing  about  him  as  a  poet.  He  is 
the  one  modern  Englishman,  and  therefore  the  one 
Englishman,  who  has  made  critical  matter  so  much 
poetry  that  it  has  become  a  part  of  our  poetical 
inheritance.  At  times  he  does  perfectly  what,  when 
placed  beside  him,  Emerson  and  Meredith  seem  often 
only  to  attempt.  In  the  main  they  are  critics  of  life 
who,  by  virtue  of  the  clarity  or  enthusiasm  of  their 
criticism,  and  because  their  whole  being  is  permeated 
with  it,  ascend  with  it  into  poetry.  Arnold  is  a  poet 
who  condescends  upon  criticism. 

One  of  the  poems  most  familiar  to  the  lover  of  Arnold 
is  the  beautiful  piece  of  modern  apologetics  called  *  East 
London  ' : — 

'  'Twas  August,  and  the  fierce  sun  overhead 
Smote  on  the  squalid  streets  of  Bethnal  Green, 
And  the  pale  weaver,  through  his  windows  seen 
In  Spitalfields,  look'd  thrice  dispirited. 


1 88  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

I  met  a  preacher  there  I  knew,  and  said  : 

"  111  and  o'erwork'd,  how  fare  you  in  this  scene  ? " — 

"  Bravely  !  "  said  he  ;  "for  I  of  late  have  been 

Much  cheer'd  with  thoughts  of  Christ,  the  living  bread" 

0  human  soul !  as  long  as  thou  canst  so 
Set  up  a  mark  of  everlasting  light, 
Above  the  howling  senses'  ebb  and  flow, 

To  cheer  thee,  and  to  right  thee  if  thou  roam — 
Not  with  lost  toil  thou  labourest  through  the  night ! 
Thou  mak'st  the  heaven  thou  hop'st  indeed  thy  home.' 

Insurgent  emotion  !  and  so  clearly  so,  that  I  suppose 
few  have  stopped  to  remark  that  the  sonnet  is  merely 
an  epitome  of  *  Literature  and  Dogma.'  It  does  in 
poetry  what  '  Literature  and  Dogma '  does  in  prose, 
what  '  Literature  and  Dogma '  could  only  do  because 
of  this  emotion  behind  it.  Such  success  as  this  dis- 
guises itself.  Arnold  seems  to  be  writing  poetry  like 
other  poets,  and  we  forget  that  he  is  criticising.  The 
emotion  is  singularly  contagious,  and  we  feel  with 
the  poet  before  we  have  time  to  think  with  the  critic. 

This,  then,  is  the  most  important  thing,  because  it 
is  the  most  unique  thing,  about  Arnold  as  a  poet.  I 
do  not  mean  it  is  the  greatest  thing.  Arnold  is  not 
chiefly  a  man  who  attempts  a  task  ;  he  is  a  natural 
poet  and  his  sentiment  is  profound  : — 

*  No,  thou  shalt  not  speak  !  I  should  be  finding 
Something  alter'd  in  thy  courtly  tone. 
Sit — sit  by  me  !     I  will  think,  we've  lived  so 
In  the  greenwood,  all  our  lives,  alone.' 

His  thought  breathes  itself  into  music  as  easily  as  the 
wind  in  a  September  tree. 

His  best  poetry  is  not  critical,  it  is  the  expression 
of  his  sentiment,  his  personal 1  and  religious  sentiment. 

1  '  Who,  let  me  say,  is  this  stranger  regards  me 

With  the  grey  eyes,  and  the  lovely  brown  hair  ? ' 


ARNOLD  189 

When  viewed  from  this  aspect,  the  sonnet  just  quoted 
is  itself  a  remarkable  instance  of  this.  No  doubt 
this  poetry  reflects  upon  life,  but  this  is  only  to  say 
that  Arnold  was  by  nature  reflective,  and  that  his 
best  poetry  expresses  his  nature. 

In  tone  this  veritable  poetry  of  Arnold's  is  curiously 
differentiated  from  his  prose.  You  would  say  from 
reading  his  prose  that  he  had  a  sunny  nature,  and  so  he 
had.  You  would  say  from  reading  his  poetry  that  he 
was  deeply  melancholy,  and  so  he  was  : — 

'  Radiant,  adorn'd  outside  ;  a  hidden  ground 
Of  thought  and  of  austerity  within.' 

It  is  not  an  inexplicable  difference.  In  his  prose 
we  have  Arnold's  work-a-day  attempt  to  make  bad 
better,  and,  on  this  bright  mission,  some  whistling 
to  keep  his  courage  up.  In  his  poetry  we  have  his 
real  and  deeper  feeling  that  we,  who  lived  while  he 
was  still  with  us,  are  at  the  end  of  days.  Arnold, 
with  a  positive  faith  not  very  different  from  Emerson's, 
was  in  the  inner  depths  of  his  being  profoundly  stirred 
by  the  loss  of  the  old,  and  not  greatly  heartened  by 
the  coming  of  the  new.1 

Yet  if  we  are  to  consider  his  poetry  from  the  stand- 
point of  lastingness  and  not  from  that  of  personal 
charm,  this  constitutes  a  weakness.  He  does  not  owe 
his  great  place  in  the  history  of  religious  thought 
to  any  such  amiability.  What  he  accomplished  in 
religion  he  accomplished  by  teaching  us  to  express 

1  '  But  now  the  old  is  out  of  date, 

The  new  is  not  yet  born, 
And  who  can  be  alone  elate, 

While  the  world  lies  forlorn  ? ' 

Verses  not  otherwise  remarkable  than  as  expressing  very  succinctly 
his  actual  attitude. 


POETRY  AND  PROSE 

our  negations  positively,  by  teaching  us  not  to  say 
*I  do  not  believe  in  the  history  of  the  Jews,'  but  to 
say  <I  believe  in  the  history  of  man,'  not  to  say  <I 
do  not  believe  in  the  prophets,'  but  to  say  'I  believe 
in  the  world.'  This  is  Emerson's  method  too,  but 
Emerson  has  not  the  same  awed  reverence ;  he  is 
perhaps  too  much  alive  to  have  it.  It  is  true,  also, 
that  on  the  negative  side  of  his  creed,  Emerson  in 
actual  fact  says  much  less  than  Arnold  ;  nevertheless 
his  attitude  to  the  positive  side  of  it  is  not  so  emotional. 
Emerson's  religion  is  with  some  differences,  such  as 
his  much  lighter  appreciation  of  necessity,  the  same 
religion  as  Arnold's,  but  the  tone  is  different.  Emerson 
is  the  announcer  of  a  religion,  Arnold  the  follower  of 
one.  What  is  personal  about  Arnold's  religious  atti- 
tude is  not,  of  course,  that  he  shared  with  many  a 
disbelief  in  tradition,  or  with  Emerson  a  belief  in 
spirit,  but  that  this  untraditional  religion  of  his  affected 
him  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  traditional  religion 
affects  the  faithful.1  He  feels  religiously,  and  our 
inestimable  debt  to  him  is  that  he  taught  us  how 
much  religion  every  man's  nature  of  necessity  con- 
tained. He  taught  us  to  remember  that,  however 
slightly  others  account  them,  these  basic  religious 
feelings  of  fear,  mystery,  submission,  strange  feelings 
of  the  heart's  own  confidence  ;  these  basic  religious 


1  For  example.  'The  lives  and  deaths  of  "the  pure  in  heart" 
have,  perhaps,  the  privilege  of  touching  us  more  deeply  than  those 
of  others — partly,  no  doubt,  because  with  them  the  disproportion  of 
suffering  to  desert  seems  so  unusually  great.  However,  with  them 
one  feels— even  I  feel— that  for  their  purity's  sake,  if  for  that  alone, 
whatever  delusions  they  may  have  wandered  in,  and  whatever 
impossibilities  they  may  have  dreamed  of,  they  shall  undoubtedly,  in 
some  sense  or  other,  see  God.' 


ARNOLD  191 

feelings  are  religious.  He  taught  us  not  to  be  cheated 
out  of  our  religion  because  the  orthodox  call  our  lack 
of  their  religion,  irreligion. 

But  in  his  poetry  there  is  too  frequent  a  melancholy, 
at  times  a  minus  note,  the  cry  of  the  defeated  soul 
outside  the  gates  barred  on  man's  Eden.  He  has 
more  tears  than  Nature  sheds.  A  poetry  of  regret 
and  loss  can  never  be  of  the  same  service  to  mankind 
as  a  poetry  that  accepts  the  world  as  it  sees  it. 

And  yet  no  genuine  poetry  can  ever  be  other  than 
it  is,  and  if  it  is  the  weakness  of  Arnold's  that  it  is 
without  sufficient  confidence,  it  is  equally  a  necessity 
of  its  charm  that  it  should  voice  his  own  inner  sense 
of  loss.  His  poetry  is  a  lament,  yet  the  lament  is 
the  melody.  The  meaning  and  the  colour  is  passing 
out  of  life,  and  there  is  no  meaning  and  no  colour  to 
come.  The  tone  of  this  poetry  is  grey,  an  exquisite 
grey.  It  is  a  poetry  of  regret  that  somehow,  by  the 
restraint  in  its  grief,  by  the  command  of  its  sorrow, 
fans  the  fevered  brow  : — 

'And  there  arrives  a  lull  in  the  hot  race 
Wherein  he  doth  for  ever  chase 
That  flying  and  elusive  shadow,  rest. 
An  air  of  coolness  plays  upon  his  face, 
And  an  unwonted  calm  pervades  his  breast. 
And  then  he  thinks  he  knows 
The  hills  where  his  life  rose, 
And  the  sea  where  it  goes.' 

Nor  is  this  regretful  tone,  however  frequent,  really 
tedious.  It  is  varied  by  a  poetry  of  joy,  not  the  joy 
of  hope,  but  joy.  All  perfectly  regretful  musings, 
we  shall  see  if  we  consider  it  even  for  a  moment,  must 
mourn  for  a  joy  that  is  past.  The  mortal  condition 
disappoints  us  ;  '  our  boasted  life  is  one  long  funeral ' ; 


192  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

friend  follows  friend  away,  but  in  the  morning,  with 
those  friends,  it  was  sweet.  Sometimes  the  body,  worn 
out  by  the  trouble  and  difficulties  of  the  sensitive  spirit, 
gives  out  even  before  its  allotted  span,  and  one  has 
to  mourn  for  Thyrsis,  dead  in  the  first  forties  at  the 
entrance  to  man's  summer  : — 

4  So,  some  tempestuous  morn  in  early  June, 
When  the  year's  primal  burst  of  bloom  is  o'er, 
Before  the  roses  and  the  longest  day — 
When  garden-walks,  and  all  the  grassy  floor, 
With  blossoms,  red  and  white,  of  fallen  May, 
And  chestnut-flowers  are  strewn — 
So  have  I  heard  the  cuckoo's  parting  cry, 
From  the  wet  field,  through  the  vext  garden-trees, 
Come  with  the  volleying  rain  and  tossing  breeze  : 
The  bloom  is  gone^  and  with  the  bloom  go  I  f 

Yes,  life  is  unsatisfying  in  its  evanescence,  a  spark 
between  two  unlit  spaces,  and  in  itself,  in  the  continuity 
of  its  joy  or  work,  delusive  : — 

4  And  if  a  life, 

With  large  results  so  little  rife, 
Though  bearable,  seem  hardly  worth 
This  pomp  of  worlds,  this  pain  of  birth ' ; 

yet,  when  it  is  done  and  we  look  back  on  it,  the  air 
blew  fresh  : — 

'  So  rest,  for  ever  rest,  O  princely  Pair  ! 
In  your  high  church,  'mid  the  still  mountain-air, 
Where  horn,  and  hound,  and  vassals,  never  come. 
Only  the  blessed  Saints  are  smiling  dumb 
From  the  rich  painted  windows  of  the  nave 
On  aisle,  and  transept,  and  your  marble  grave  ; 
Where  thou,  young  Prince,  shalt  never  more  arise 
From  the  fringed  mattress  where  thy  Duchess  lies, 
On  autumn-mornings,  when  the  bugle  sounds, 
And  ride  across  the  drawbridge  with  thy  hounds 
To  hunt  the  boar  in  the  crisp  woods  till  eve.' 


ARNOLD  193 

This  it  is — that  we  must  part  from   them — that  gives 
their  pathos  to 

'  Youth  and  bloom  and  this  delightful  world.3 
If  man  remained  for  ever  young  and  had  no  end  to 
fear,  if  he  did  not  feel  his  bones  to  creak  or  his  veins 
to  throb,  if  he  remained  as  unconscious  of  his  body 
and  its  burden  as  a  school-boy,  if,  indeed,  it  were 
always  May,  who  would  quarrel  with  our  lot?  Not 
Arnold  !  He  is  conscious,  surprisingly  conscious  for 
a  reflective  poet,  of  the  joys  of  youthful  life,  of  the 
imaginary  joys  of  the  unfading  youth  of  the  gods. 
All  his  serious  bids  for  pathos  are  made  upon  this 
theme.  The  sad  thing  is  that  so  many  die  young 
with  their  life's  hope  unfulfilled,  that  others  who  live 
long  have  never  tasted  life. 

Thus  the  story  of  the  young  Sohrab  and  his  death 
is  told  with  a  pathos  that  is  very  moving,  because  it  is 
so  full  of  a  consciousness  of  the  joys  of  youth,  when 
the  heart  first  expands  in  its  affections,  and  feels  the 
glow,  still  unchilled  by  the  winds  of  death,  of  human 
love.  But  young  Sohrab  has  to  die,  and  by  an 
accident,  so  that  even  the  average  human  lot,  full 
of  pain  and  parting  as  it  is,  promised,  fairly,  more. 
And  Arnold  moves  us  more  than  other  poets  because 
he  bears  uncomplainingly  ;  thinks  of  Sohrab's  death 
and  weeps,  but  draws  his  manhood  together  as  he 
rests  in  the  wide  idea  of  Death,  surrounding  us  like 
the  quiet  spaces  of  the  night  sky,  really  to  us  as  the 
sea  is  to  a  river,  for  all  its  wandering,  a  final  home  : — 

*  for  many  a  league 

The  shorn  and  parcell'd  Oxus  strains  along 

Through  beds  of  sand  and  matted  rushy  isles — 

Oxus,  forgetting  the  bright  speed  he  had 

In  his  high  mountain-cradle  in  Pamere, 

N 


i94  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

A  foil'd  circuitous  wanderer — till  at  last 

The  long'd-for  dash  of  waves  is  heard,  and  wide 

His  luminous  home  of  waters  opens,  bright 

And  tranquil,  from  whose  floor  the  new-bathed  stars 

Emerge,  and  shine  upon  the  Aral  sea.' 

He  thinks  so  of  Sohrab's  death,  and  so  also  of  Balder's 
accepting  the  doom  assigned.  It  is  remarkable  how 
he  treats  Tristram  and  Iseult,  the  subject  of  which  is 
life  fulfilling  itself,  also  as  a  theme  of  reminiscence. 
On  the  lovers'  ecstasies  he  looks  backward,  and  in 
his  hands  it  is  a  tale  of  youth  that  fled. 

There  is  a  passage  in  this  perfect  thing  which, 
with  the  years,  does  not  lose  its  power  to  make  still ; 
that  passage  where  Arnold  tells  of  the  long  quiet  life  of 
Iseult  of  Brittany  with  her  children,  after  Tristram, 
with*  his  passion  for  another  Iseult  of  a  stranger  and 
wilder  beauty,  is  dead. 

'  And  is  she  happy  ?     Does  she  see  unmoved 
The  days  in  which  she  might  have  lived  and  loved 
Slip  without  bringing  bliss  slowly  away, 
One  after  one,  to-morrow  like  to-day  ? 
Joy  has  not  found  her  yet,  nor  ever  will — 
Is  it  this  thought  that  makes  her  mien  so  still, 
Her  features  so  fatigued,  her  eyes,  though  sweet, 
So  sunk,  so  rarely  lifted  save  to  meet 
Her  children's  ?     She  moves  slow  ;  her  voice  alone 
Hath  yet  an  infantine  and  silver  tone, 
But  even  that  comes  languidly  ;  in  truth, 
She  seems  one  dying  in  a  mask  of  youth. 
And  now  she  will  go  home,  and  softly  lay 
Her  laughing  children  in  their  beds,  and  play 
Awhile  with  them  before  they  sleep  ;  and  then 
She'll  light  her  silver  lamp,  which  fishermen 
Dragging  their  nets  through  the  rough  waves,  afar, 
Along  this  iron  coast,  know  like  a  star, 
And  take  her  broidery-frame,  and  there  she'll  sit 
Hour  after  hour,  her  gold  curls  sweeping  it ; 
Lifting  her  soft-bent  head  only  to  mind 
Her  children,  or  to  listen  to  the  wind. 


ARNOLD  195 

And  when  the  clock  peals  midnight,  she  will  move 
Her  work  away,  and  let  her  fingers  rove 
Across  the  shaggy  brows  of  Tristram's  hound 
Who  lies,  guarding  her  feet,  along  the  ground  ; 
Or  else  she  will  fall  musing,  her  blue  eyes 
Fix'd,  her  slight  hands  clasp'd  on  her  lap  ;  then  rise, 
And  at  her  prie-dieu  kneel,  until  she  have  told 
Her  rosary-beads  of  ebony  tipp'd  with  gold, 
Then  to  her  soft  sleep — and  to-morrow  '11  be 
To-day's  exact  repeated  effigy.' 

This  tone  of  patience  is  heard  in  all  Arnold's  poetry, 
and  it  is  heard  because  his  poetry  is  devout.  It  has 
more  of  the  cloister  in  it  than  is  to  be  found  in  any 
other  poetry  of  our  time,  so  much  more  that  there  is 
even  some  initial  difficulty  of  appreciation  ;  a  greater 
depth  of  Christian  feeling  and  a  fuller  understanding 
of  the  doctrine  of  self-surrender  than  we  have  capacity 
properly  to  realise.  If  we  were  to  compare  it  with 
the  finest  attitude  of  a  Pagan  age  or  temper,  we 
should  see  that  what  we  have  to  deal  with  here  is 
not  the  beautiful  superiority  to  life  which  we  find  in 
Marcus  Aurelius,  or  even  in  the  last  reported  sayings 
of  John  Brown,1  but  submission  to  life.  And  so 
real  is  this  temper  that  other  poets  in  their  efforts 
to  represent  it  seem  like  boys  playing  with  half- 
apprehended  ideas.  Put  Tennyson's  '  St.  Agnes'  Eve  * 
beside  the  passage  just  quoted,  and  how  frail  and 


1  'His  guards  and  attendants  can  talk  of  nothing  but  his  natural 
cheerfulness,  which  seems  never  to  have  given  way  at  all.  He  was 
a  man  of  few  words  ;  and  any  long  conversations,  any  preachments, 
given  out  as  his  utterances,  must  be  distrusted.  His  conduct  and 
manners  were  just  those  of  a  man  to  whom  nothing  particular  was 
happening.  When  an  officer,  impressed  with  this,  asked  him  plainly 
whether  he  really  felt  no  recoil  at  all  from  what  awaited  him  ;  he 
replied,  Why,  no  ;  but  that  fear  was  not  his  trial.  He  was  not 
liable  to  fear.  He  had  in  the  course  of  his  life  suffered  far  more 
from  bashfulness  than  fear.' 


I 


196  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

external  becomes  that  exquisite  picture  of  the  emotion 
of  another.  Compared  with  Arnold,  Tennyson,  the 
Broad  Churchman,  is  a  man  who  has  heard  of 
Christianity,  and  Browning,  the  optimist,  with  his 
Abt  Vogler  melodies,  a  brave  citizen  with  a  Sunday 
mood :  much  vigour  and  confidence  of  blood  sings 
with  Browning  when  he  sings  his  masterful  hymns. 
But  in  the  inner  sanctuary  of  Arnold  we  are  admitted 
to  a  place  removed,  as  much  withdrawn  from  the 
activities  of  living,  and  as  dead  to  them,  as  a  rayless 
star,  a  place  accessible  only  to  the  rare  poet  and  the 
rarer  saint,  the  saint  who  is  satisfied  with  his  own 
quietism  and  does  not  seek  to  do  good.  There  is  an 
abnegation  of  the  private  will,  and  this  without  any 
parade.  *I  yielded  myself  to  the  perfect  whole,'  says 
Emerson,  but  in  so  saying,  he  seems  merely  to  be 
politely  waiving  resistance  to  the  claims  of  the  Universe 
to  absorb  the  most  persistent  individuality  in  literature. 
It  was  a  voluntary  act,  and  Emerson  is  the  gracious 
victor  in  that  as  in  every  contest.  The  tone  of  Arnold 
is  altogether  different.  He  is  not  the  individual  who 
decides,  but  the  thing  which  is  affected.  The  Universe, 
this  you  feel  in  his  poems,  is  everywhere  greater  than 
man  is.  His  still  music  comes  from  him  in  response 
to  ideas  which  shake  the  forest  of  men  like  a  reed, 
to  which  they  owe  their  life,  and  which  make  them 
distinguishably  human.  To  Arnold,  the  one  thought 
that  through  the  years  comes  permanently  sweet  is 
that  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  the  one  idea  that  consoles, 
in  permanent  opposition  to  the  hurry  of  the  world,  the 
idea  of  the  Everlasting. 

It  is  difficult  to  represent  this,  the  breath  and  finer 
spirit   of  his   feeling,    but   there   is   one    poem   which 


ARNOLD  197 

of  all  his  poems,  it  seems  to  me,  represents  it  best. 
It  is  an  early  poem,  and  full  of  longueurs  and  imma- 
turities which  have  sufficed  to  hide  from  critical 
appreciation  the  meaning  of  its  tone.  Moreover,  the 
mere  story  of  '  The  Sick  King  in  Bokhara '  has  a 
peculiarity  and  particularity  that  is  a  little  distracting. 
There  is  an  out-of-the-wayness  in  the  external  aspect 
of  the  religious  experience  with  which  it  deals,  which 
prevents  many  from  realising  how  much  it  is  about 
themselves.  Besides,  the  demand  of  the  '  poor  man  ' 
formally  religious,  though  in  spirit  quite  forlornly 
selfish,  is,  when  followed  by  his  execution,  so  strik- 
ing an  episode  that  attention  is  concentrated  upon  it. 
And  yet,  of  course,  the  religious  experience  of  which 
the  poem  speaks  is  not  the  poor  man's,  but  the 
King's. 

The  poem  opens  with  the  King  present  and,  in 
attendance  on  him,  Hussein.  To  them  enters  the 
Vizier,  for  whom  the  King  has  sent  to  afford  him 
aid  in  his  trouble.  The  Vizier  wishes  to  know  what 
troubles  the  King,  and  Hussein  proceeds  to  tell  him, 
the  King  standing  patiently  by,  waiting  for  the  Vizier's 
opinion. 

Two  days  ago,  says  Hussein,  a  man  came  running, 
crying  for  justice,  but  the  King  would  not  heed. 
Again,  yesterday,  when  the  King  went  forth,  the  man 
came  importunate  and  told  his  tale.  The  water  in  the 
land  had  dried  up  and  the  hot  nights  were  unbearable. 
This  poor  man  had  collected  water  in  a  pitcher  from 
a  far  spot,  and  put  it  by  in  a  secret  place  that  he 
might  drink  when  he  woke.  But  when  he  woke  his 
pitcher  was  gone.  His  brothers  had  satisfied  their 
thirst  at  his  hoard,  and  having  given  the  last  drops  to 


i98  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

his  mother  were  now  composing  themselves  to  sleep. 
At  that  he  broke  forth  and  cursed  them  : — 

'  One  was  my  mother — Now,  do  right ! ' 

'  But  my  lord  mused  a  space,  and  said  : 
"  Send  him  away,  Sirs,  and  make  on  ! 
It  is  some  madman  ! "  the  King  said. 
As  the  King  bade,  so  was  it  done.' 

But  again  this  morning  right  in  the  King's  path  behold 
the  man  !  If  the  King  would  not  judge  him  in  this 
world  for  his  impiety,  he  must  bear  the  guilt  with  him 
into  the  limitless  future  : — 

* "  What,  must  I  howl  in  the  next  world, 
Because  thou  wilt  not  listen  here  ? " 

Then  they  who  stood  about  the  King 
Drew  close  together  and  conferr'd  ; 
Till  that  the  King  stood  forth  and  said  : 
"  Before  the  priests  thou  shalt  be  heard." 

But  when  the  Ulemas  were  met, 
And  the  thing  heard,  they  doubted  not ; 
But  sentenced  him,  as  the  law  is, 
To  die  by  stoning  on  the  spot. 

Now  the  King  charged  us  secretly  : 
"  Stoned  must  he  be,  the  law  stands  so. 
Yet,  if  he  seek  to  fly,  give  way  ; 
Hinder  him  not,  but  let  him  go." 

So  saying,  the  King  took  a  stone, 
And  cast  it  softly  ; — but  the  man, 
With  a  great  joy  upon  his  face, 
Kneel'd  down,  and  cried  not,  neither  ran.' 

Then  the  stones  of  the  judgment  fly  fast : — 

'  My  lord  had  cover'd  up  his  face  ; 
But  when  one  told  him,  "  He  is  dead," 
Turning  him  quickly  to  go  in, 
"  Bring  thou  to  me  his  corpse,"  he  said.' 


ARNOLD  199 

Even  now  the  bearers  can  be  heard  on  the  stair.  The 
Vizier  looks  on  the  haggard  face  of  the  young  King 
whose  soul  is  bowed  beneath  another's  burden,  and  he 
begins  quietly,  compassionately,  and  in  the  language 
of  good  sense,  to  distinguish.  There  is  in  truth  no 
just  occasion  for  sorrow  ;  the  victim  was  not  of  blood 
kin,  far  from  it,  and,  had  he  been,  this  is  the  kind  of 
thing  that  must  happen.  One  would  not  wish  it  other- 
wise, that  impiety  should  go  unchecked,  and  that  he 
who  curseth  father  or  mother  should  escape  the  opera- 
tion of  the  law  : — 

'But  being  nothing,  as  he  is, 
Why  for  no  cause  make  sad  thy  face  ? — 
Lo,  I  am  old  !  three  Kings,  ere  thee, 
Have  I  seen  reigning  in  this  place. 

But  who,  through  all  this  length  of  time, 
Could  bear  the  burden  of  his  years, 
If  he  for  strangers  pain'd  his  heart 
Not  less  than  those  who  merit  tears  ? 

Fathers  we  must  have,  wife  and  child, 
And  grievous  is  the  grief  for  these  ; 
This  pain  alone,  which  must  be  borne, 
Makes  the  head  white,  and  bows  the  knees.' 

It  is  really  important  that  one  should  not  give  way  to 
such  outpourings  of  the  heart.  If  one  is  to  think  of  all 
the  sad  things  that  happen  in  the  world  one  will  always 
have  occasion  for  sorrow.  Suppose  all  is  well  in  the 
palace  (the  little  palace  of  one's  own  affections !)  at 
least  far  away  you  can  hear,  if  you  lay  your  ear  to 
the  earth,  the  cry  of  the  stolen  slave  child,  the  short 
heavy  panting  of  the  toilers,  the  ceaseless  sound  of 
quarrelling,  and  the  uneasy  tossing  of  disease.  Life 
can  only  be  supported  on  the  supposition  that  to  each 
man  is  not  only  his  own  sorrow  but  his  own  joy  ; 


200  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

the   poor,    are   they   not   always   with   us   and   always 
suffering? — 


'All  these  have  sorrow,  and  keep  still, 
Whilst  other  men  make  cheer,  and  sing. 
Wilt  thou  have  pity  on  all  these? 
No,  nor  on  this  dead  dog,  O  King  ! J 

But  the  young  man  turns  on  his  adviser  a  lack-lustre 
eye.  In  his  ears  is  the  sound  of  the  earth  that  travails, 
in  his  vision,  so  that  he  cannot  get  it  out,  the  mangled 
body  his  pity  could  not  save,  and  in  his  bosom  that 
overpowering  feeling  of  sick  disgust  which  proceeds 
from  the  soul  disturbed  : — 

'  O  Vizier,  thou  art  old,  I  young  ! 
Clear  in  these  things  I  cannot  see. 
My  head  is  burning,  and  a  heat 
Is  in  my  skin  which  angers  me. 

But  hear  ye  this,  ye  sons  of  men  ! 
They  that  bear  rule,  and  are  obeyed, 
Unto  a  rule  more  strong  than  theirs 
Are  in  their  turn  obedient  made.' 

I  have  represented  this  poem  very  poorly  if  it  appears 
to  any  one  that  the  clear-eyed  Emerson  could  have 
written  it,  or  that  any  one  could  have  written  it  but 
Arnold. 


MEREDITH  201 


MEREDITH 

SPECULATION  as  to  the  genesis  of  Meredith's  poetical 
style  ended,  for  the  literary  class,  with  the  republication 
of  the  poems  of  1851.  It  was  clear  that  he  was  not  a 
natural  poet ;  that  there  was  at  first  no  magic,  no  capa- 
city for  essentially  poetical  thought,  not  much  beyond 
competence.  Meredith,  at  first,  could  do  what  others 
can  do.  In  verse,  occasionally  truly  melodious,  he 
could  say  little,  easily  enough.  The  chief  character- 
istic of  the  small  volume  is  its  diffuseness.1  Even  the 
poem  which  has  most  poetical  quality  in  it  ('  Daphne'), 
has  a  spread  effect.  *  The  Two  Blackbirds '  is  spoilt 
by  not  knowing  how  to  stop  half  way.  The  short 

1  'Chillianwallah'  has  some  'natural  music' : — 

'  Chillianwallah,  Chillianwallah  ! 

'Tis  a  wild  and  dreary  plain, 
Strewn  with  plots  of  thickest  jungle, 

Matted  with  the  gory  stain. 
There  the  murder-mouthed  artillery, 

In  the  deadly  ambuscade, 
Wrought  the  thunder  of  its  treachery 

On  the  skeleton  brigade ' ; 

.and  there  is  a  verse  opening  the  Pastorals  that  lingers  in  my 
jnemory  :— 

'  How  sweet  on  sunny  afternoons, 
For  those  who  journey  light  and  well, 
To  loiter  up  a  hilly  rise 
Which  hides  the  prospect  far  beyond, 
And  fancy  all  the  landscape  lying 
Beautiful  and  still.' 


202  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

4  Love  in  the  Valley '  reads  longer  than  the  much 
lengthened  poem  of  later  days.  For  the  rest,  there  is- 
expansive  stuff  and  to  spare. 

Leaving  out  of  account  a  few  happy  phrases  and  a 
really  individual  observation  of  country  sights,  the 
active  effect  of  '  South-West  Wind  in  the  Woodland,'1 
or  the  fresh  effect  of  a  country  girl,  there  was  little 
accomplished  ;  scattered  shot  fired  in  the  air  without 
apparent  intention  of  hitting.  One  would  have  said 
there  was  no  danger  of  obscurity,  nor  of  anything 
else. 

But  with  the  next  volume,  published  ten  years  later,. 


1  As  for  example  : — 

*  Now,  whirring  like  an  eagle's  wing 
Preparing  for  a  wide  blue  flight  ; 
Now,  flapping  like  a  sail  that  tacks 
And  chides  the  wet  bewildered  mast  ; 
Now,  screaming  like  an  anguish'd  thing 
Chased  close  by  some  down-breathing  beak  ; 
Now,  wailing  like  a  breaking  heart, 
That  will  not  wholly  break,  but  hopes 
With  hope  that  knows  itself  in  vain  ; 
Now,  threatening  like  a  storm-charged  cloud  ; 
Now,  cooing  like  a  woodland  dove  ; 
Now,  up  again  in  roar  and  wrath 
High  soaring  and  wide  sweeping  ;  now 
With  sudden  fury  dashing  down 
Full-force  on  the  awaiting  woods '  ; 

but  the  level  is  not  as  high.     On  the  other  hand,  there  are  no  other 
verses  in  the  early  '  Love  in  the  Valley '  quite  as  weak  as  this  :— 

'  Comes  a  sudden  question — should  a  strange  hand  pluck  her  ! 

Oh  !  what  an  anguish  smites  me  at  the  thought. 
Should  some  idle  lordling  bribe  her  mind  with  jewels  ! — 

Can  such  beauty  ever  thus  be  bought  ? 
Sometimes  the  huntsmen  prancing  down  the  valley 

Eye  the  village  lasses,  full  of  sprightly  mirth  ; 
They  see  as  I  see,  mine  is  the  fairest  ! 

Would  she  were  older  and  could  read  my  worth  ! ' 


MEREDITH  203 

a  new  poet  presented  himself.  In  those  years  Mere- 
dith had  found  his  interests,  which  were  political  and 
moral,  and  there  is  now  heart  in  his  talk.  The  material 
is  not  essentially  poetical  material  ;  on  the  contrary, 
essentially  material  of  observation,  and  singularly  far 
removed  from  the  empty  conventional  subjects  of  the 
preceding  volume,  but  there  is  often  mastery.  Some 
of  the  verses  that  appeared  in  1862  had  no  doubt 
affinity  with  the  earlier  productions.  In  some  there 
was  still  a  tendency  to  be  diffuse.  '  Grandfather 
Bridgeman,'  though  it  is  saved  by  its  humour,  is  not 
free  from  Mid-Victorian  sentiment,  and  '  The  Beggar's 
Soliloquy '  attempts  the  same  thing  that  is  successfully 
done  in  'The  Old  Chartist.'  But  in  the  main,  even 
the  failures  were  '  prophetic  of  the  coming  joy  and 
strife.'  In  'Margaret's  Bridal  Eve,'  which  is  too 
wordy,  in  'The  Head  of  Bran  the  Blest,' which  ends 
very  poorly,  in  'Cassandra,'  which,  but  for  its  subject 
being  infinitely  better,  might  be  good,  one  hears  at 
times  the  future  clinch. 

In  short,  as  soon  as  he  has  something  to  say,  not 
usually  a  poetical  something,  Meredith  takes  poetical 
rank.  Whether  his  task,  before  the  end  of  his  poetical 
career,  does  not  become  too  hard  for  him  is  another 
question,  but  he  achieved  little  or  nothing  till  he  had  a 
task.  No  poet  has  ever  been  more  indebted  to  having 
something  to  lean  against.  Emerson  on  conventional 
subjects  was  not  so  weak.  Emerson  was  no  love  poet, 
yet  when  he  was  writing,  or,  as  a  better  expression, 
failing  to  write,  love  poetry,  he  was  Emerson.  Mere- 
dith is  not  himself  till  he  sets  his  teeth.  With  mouth 
open  he  is  not  the  poet  breathing  the  sunrise;  with  this 
attitude,  in  poetry  he  is  a  yokel.  As  a  poet,  commonly 


204  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

so  called,  he  is  an  ineffective  and  unindividual  writer. 
As  striving  to  give  his  matter  poetical  expression,  he  is 
one  of  the  greatest  who  has  made  language  subserve 
his  use.  It  is  not  his  task,  hard  as  it  is,  that  prevents 
him  writing  more  poetically  ;  it  was  his  task  that  made 
him  a  poet. 

The  nature  of  this  task  was  twofold.  He  had  to 
learn  to  write  on  usual  subjects  so  as  to  compel  atten- 
tion ;  he  had  to  learn  to  write  on  unusual  subjects. 

His  achievement  therefore  falls  into  two  divisions, 
which  however  in  two  ways  overlap.  There  is  no 
distinct  order  of  succession,  for,  though  the  choice  of 
extremely  unusual  subjects  is  in  the  main  a  habit  of 
later  life,  a  fondness  for  subjects  that  are  out  of  the  way 
is  developed  almost  as  early  as  his  habit  of  effective 
speech.  Both  habits  grow  in  intensity  side  by  side. 
The  other  overlapping  concerns  the  manner.  It  is  not 
only  on  usual  subjects  that  he  comes  finally  to  write 
unusually.  His  habit  of  effortful  writing  becomes  a 
general  habit,  and  independent  of  the  simplicity  of  the 
subjects.  Some  of  his  wryest  and  most  effective  con- 
tortions are  on  topics  not  in  themselves  easily  suscep- 
tible of  poetical  treatment ;  topics  strange  to  poetry. 
Again,  when  one  speaks  of  Meredith  writing  so  as  to 
compel  attention  on  usual  subjects,  one  must  be  under- 
stood with  the  reservation  that  the  most  usual  subjects 
treated  by  him  become  in  some  degree  unusual ;  at 
least  are  set  in  a  new  light. 

A  serviceable  distinction,  then,  among  Meredith's 
successes  would  amount  to  not  much  more  than  this. 
He  has  poems  which  are  chiefly  remarkable  for  their 
quality  of  style,  other  poems  that  are  chiefly  remark- 
able, being  poems,  for  their  thought  or  philosophy. 


MEREDITH  205 

The  second  class  of  poems  forms  Meredith's  contri- 
bution to  the  poetical  movement  of  the  age,  a  move- 
ment which  will  be  complete  when  at  last  we  are  able 
to  see  emotion  and  matter  of  thought  as  no  longer 
separate. 

The  first  class  of  poems,  that  class  which  contains 
the  poems  chiefly  remarkable  for  their  quality  of  style, 
is  Meredith's  contribution  to  poetry  :  how  great  and 
how  singular  a  contribution  has  been  under-emphasised 
by  those,  and  it  is  natural  the  exponents  of  Meredith 
should  be  among  them,  who  have  eyes  chiefly  for  the 
nuptials  of  philosophy  and  song. 

But,  in  its  way,  it  is  an  achievement  as  unique  as  the 
other.  Meredith  invented  a  poetical  style.  All  great 
poets  have  a  style  of  their  own,  a  style  which  is  them- 
selves ;  but  Meredith  invented  a  style.  He  invented  a 
new  style  in  poetry  for  himself,  just  as  Johnson  for 
himself,  for  neither  is  imitable,  invented  a  new  style  in 
prose.  And  he  brought  to  this  style-making  some 
similar  qualities  ;  a  capacity  for  classicalising  English, 
an  instinct  for  Saxon,  and  a  hard  pushing-through 
sense.  These  qualities  appear  in  different  proportions 
in  the  two  writers.  Besides,  Meredith  adds  qualities  of 
his  own  ;  he  has  light,  and  an  ear  peculiarly  sensitive 
to  the  subtler  effects  of  metre.  He  has,  moreover,  a 
sense  of  Comedy  ;  not  humour  nor  wit,  properly  so 
called,  but  the  kind  of  benign  grin  his  Earth  Spirit 
sometimes  wears.  With  these  attributes  he  has  one 
supreme  power :  he  has  few  plain  depths,  but  when  he 
feels  subtly  he  feels  deeply.  Give  him  a  shade  of  feel- 
ing, or  a  half-formed  feeling,  and  he  is  at  the  bottom  of 
it  in  the  same  way  in  which  Burns  is  at  home  with  the 
elemental  feelings  of  the  heart.  He  uses  a  rapier  and 


206  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

he  amuses  you  with  its  flickering,  and  then,  suddenly, 
it  is  there. 

The  tale  of  the  love  felt  by  the  good  physician 
Melampus  for  the  creatures  of  the  wood  is  told  in  a 
sort  of  chequered  sunlight,  in  verse  with  the  grace  of  a 
long  billow  ;  the  story-telling  intellect  flicking  over  its 
subject : — 

'  Now  sleeping  once  on  a  day  of  marvellous  fire, 
A  brood  of  snakes  he  had  cherished  in  grave  regret 
That  death  his  people  had  dealt  their  dam  and  their  sire, 
Through  savage  dread  of  them,  crept  to  his  neck,  and  set 
Their  tongues  to  lick  him  :  the  swift  affectionate  tongue 
Of  each  ran  licking  the  slumberer  :  then  his  ears 
A  forked  red  tongue  tickled  shrewdly  :  sudden  upsprung, 
He  heard  a  voice  piping  :  Ay,  for  he  has  no  fears  ! 

A  bird  said  that,  in  the  notes  of  birds,  and  the  speech 
Of  men,  it  seemed ' : 

'  The  swift  affectionate  tongue  ' !  Equally  dependent 
on  its  style  is  'The  Old  Chartist,'  a  simple  tale  of  the 
reflections  of  a  Radical  on  inequality  and  self-respect: — 

'  Whate'er  I  be,  old  England  is  my  dam  ! 

So  there's  my  answer  to  the  judges,  clear. 
I  'm  nothing  of  a  fox,  nor  of  a  lamb  ; 
I  don't  know  how  to  bleat  nor  how  to  leer  : 

I  'm  for  the  nation  ! 

That 's  why  you  see  me  by  the  wayside  here, 
Returning  home  from  transportation. 

It's  Summer  in  her  bath  this  morn,  I  think. 

I  Jm  fresh  as  dew,  and  chirpy  as  the  birds  : 
And  just  for  joy  to  see  old  England  wink 

Thro'  leaves  again,  I  could  harangue  the  herds  : 

Isn't  it  something 
To  speak  out  like  a  man  when  you  Ve  got  words, 

And  prove  you're  not  a  stupid  dumb  thing?' 

He  sees  a  water-rat  cleaning  himself  on  the  mud-bank, 
sharing  the  '  aplomb  of  animals,'  happy  in  self-suffi- 
ciency, quadrupedally  indifferent  to  all  else  : — 


MEREDITH  207 

'  You  teach  me  a  fine  lesson,  my  old  boy  ! 

I  've  looked  on  my  superiors  far  too  long, 
And  small  has  been  my  profit  as  my  joy. 

You've  done  the  right  while  I  've  denounced  the  wrong 

Prosper  me  later  ! 

Like  you  I  will  despise  the  sniggering  throng, 
And  please  myself  and  my  Creator.' 

The  thought  pleases  him.  He  remembers,  with  kind- 
liness all  aglow,  that  his  wife,  without  sharing  his 
opinions,  supported  him  at  his  trial : — 

4  She  suffered  for  me  : — women,  you'll  observe, 

Don't  suffer  for  a  Cause,  but  for  a  man. 
When  I  was  in  the  dock  she  show'd  her  nerve : 
I  saw  beneath  her  shawl  my  old  tea-can. 

Trembling  .  .  .  she  brought  it 
To  screw  me  for  my  work  :  she  loath'd  my  plan, 
And  therefore  doubly  kind  I  thought  it. 

I  've  never  lost  the  taste  of  that  same  tea  : 

That  liquor  on  my  logic  floats  like  oil, 
When  I  state  facts,  and  fellows  disagree. 

For  human  creatures  all  are  in  a  coil ; 

All  may  want  pardon. 
I  see  a  day  when  every  pot  will  boil 

Harmonious  in  one  great  Tea-garden  ! ' 

Take  him  again  in  '  Martin's  Puzzle.'  Molly,  who  is 
as  good  as  gold  and  half  as  pretty,  has  been  run  over 
by  the  village  cart,  pushed  downstairs  '  to  make  her  go 
crooked,'  and  generally  made  the  sport 

'  of  that  power 
Which  erring  men  call  Chance.' 

Martin  wishes  to  embrace  the  creed  of  Pangloss 
and  offers  to  himself  several  justifications  of  those 
troubles : — 

'  But  the  worst  of  me  is,  that  when  I  bow  my  head, 
I  perceive  a  thought  wriggling  away  in  the  dust, 
And  I  follow  its  tracks,  quite  forgetful,  instead 
Of  humble  acceptance  :  for,  question  I  must! 


208  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Here 's  a  creature  made  carefully — carefully  made  ! 

Put  together  with  craft,  and  then  stamped  on,  and  why  ? 
The  answer  seems  nowhere  :  it's  discord  that's  played. 

The  sky's  a  blue  dish  !-  an  implacable  sky  !' 

1  Here 's  a  creature  made  carefully — carefully  made  ! r 
The  quality  here  is  the  quality  of  style.  Sometimes  it 
is  possible  for  the  reader  thus  to  particularise  ;  *  the 
swift  affectionate  tongue,'  and,  here,  the  studied  repeti- 
tion. Occasionally  one  can  place  one's  finger  on  the 
line  from  which  the  magic  radiates,  but  more  often  the 
quality  is  a  pervading  quality,  and  felt  in  a  series  of 
effects.  Few  things  finer  than  '  The  Orchard  and  the 
Heath  ' l  have  ever  been  written.  The  sense  of  childish 
delight  so  artfully  caught  by  an  intentional  sim- 
plicity : — 

'  A  small  one  tumbling  sang,  "  Oh  !  head  ! "  ' 

the  impression  of  spattered  life,  the  consciousness  of 
the  vast  livingness  of  Nature  surrounding  and  enfolding 
all ;  these  are  brought  home  to  us,  not  by  single  lines, 
but  by  an  obtrusive  style  ;  a  style  that  is  at  once  so 
weighted  and  so  alert  with  perception  that  it  seems  to 
be  obtruded  by  a  power  behind  itself ;  an  artificiality  so 
convincing  that  it  seems  as  if  Nature  required  the 
artificiality  to  be  seen. 

In  their  different  manners,  '  The  Day  of  the  Daugh- 
ter of  Hades,'  a  poem  which  does  not  quite  succeed,2 
but  which  leaves  a  permanent  imaginative  effect, 


1  This  poem  is  admirably  analysed  by  Mr.  Basil  de  Se'lincourt, 
pp.  251-254,  George  Meredith^  by  M.  Sturge  Henderson. 

2  It  does  not  succeed  partly  owing  to  a  purely  wanton  obscurity, 
as   Mr.    Ker   would   express   it,   'outside   the  poem.'    The   whole 
would  be  clear  enough   if  we  were  told  that  the  story  was  about 


MEREDITH  209 

'  Earth  and  a  Wedded  Woman  ' — no  more  than  the 
arrangement  of  an  impression — and  'Jump  to  Glory 
Jane ' — 

'Those  flies  of  boys  disturbed  them  sore 
On  Sundays  and  when  daylight  wore : 
With  withies-  cut  from  hedge  or  copse, 
They  treated  them  as  whipping-tops, 
And  flung  big  stones  with  cruel  aim  ; 
Yet  all  the  flock  jumped  on  the  same'  ; 

in  their  different  manners,  these  poems  are  wholly- 
made  by  their  style.1 

Of  course  behind  this  style  there  is  the  personality  of 


Proserpine,  the  unwilling  bride  of  Pluto ;  about  her  god-granted 
boon  of  periodical  visits  to  the  earth,  and  about  her  having  a 
daughter  born  to  Pluto,  Skiageneia,  who  accompanies  her  parent 
on  one  of  her  visits  to  earth,  and  is  overlooked  when  Proserpine 
returns.  When  Skiageneia  is  missed,  Pluto  comes  up  for  her.  This 
is  very  easily  said,  and  it  was  merely  wanton  not  to  say  it.  Similarly, 
Meredith  should  have  told  us,  in  elucidation  of  'Jump  to  Glory  Jane,' 
that  there  was  in  actual  fact  a  sect  of  Jumpers,  and  in  elucidation  of 
'Periander'  that  Periander,  Tyrant  of  Corinth,  on  one  occasion,  in  a 
wild  rage,  wounded  his  wife  Melissa  so  that  she  died  ;  that  afterwards 
he  banished  his  son  Lycophron,  who  grieved  for  his  mother's  death, 
to  Corcyra,  and  that  finally,  many  years  having  passed,  and  the 
Tyrant  wearying  of  the  cares  of  State,  Periander  offered  to  recall 
Lycophron  to  govern  Corinth,  he  himself  retiring  as  Governor  of 
Corcyra.  The  Corcyraeans,  not  liking  the  prospect  of  this  exchange, 
killed  Lycophron,  and  Periander  died  of  grief. 

With  this  told,  the  poem  is  quite  clear.  Left  untold,  there  is  no 
better  instance  of  obscurity  '  outside  a  poem.' 

1  '  The  Appeasement  of  Demeter' furnishes  another  instance  of  the 
vital  service  to  Meredith  of  his  attention-arresting  speech.  In  itself 
the  poem  is,  in  subject,  affectedly  actionless.  Demeter  has  left 
Earth  in  a  pet,  and  a  blight  falls  on  the  valley  ;  there  is  neither  sun 
nor  rain  : — 

4  Now  whether  night  advancing,  whether  day, 
Scarce  did  the  baldness  show.' 

But  instinct  in  the  valley  creatures  still,  at  times,  and  half-heartedly, 

O 


210  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Meredith,  pleasingly  cynical  and  intimately  modern. 
But  the  style  here  is  by  no  means  merely  the  man. 
There  is  an  elaborate,  sometimes  jocund,  sometimes 
ironical  artifice.  You  can  see  the  conjurer  waving  his 
hands.  These  poems  of  Meredith's  are  a  brilliant 
causerie  on  experience.  l  Breath  of  the  Briar '  is  a 
morsel  touched  with  the  *  swift  affectionate  tongue '  of 
the  intellect : — 

'  Green  of  rind,  and  redolent 
Of  sweetness  as  a  milking  cow ' ; 

fresh  as  that  apple  and  the  vision  recalled  : — 

'  The  damsel  with  her  teeth  on  it ; 
Her  twinkle  between  frank  and  shy, 
My  thirst  to  bite  where  she  had  bit.' 

'  Juggling  Jerry  '  is  the  prettiest  plaything  that  ever 
amused  man  that  is  mortal,  and  touched  his  fount  of 
tears.  In  these  ingenious  verses,  Meredith's  playful 
excursus  *  upon  Setebos,'  the  acrobat  must  be  particu- 
larised as  a  juggler,  so  that  the  metaphor  (it  is  natural 
to  speak  in  the  terms  of  one's  trade)  may  personify  the 
irony  of  things  : — 


makes  dumb  attempt  to  play.    This  moves  Demeter  to  laughter,  and 
her  laughter  the  sun  to  shine  and  the  rain  to  fall : — 

'  She  laughed  :  since  our  first  harvesting  heard  none 
Like  thunder  of  the  song  of  heart :  her  face, 
The  dreadful  darkness,  shook  to  mounted  sun, 
And  peal  and  peal  across  the  hills  held  chase. 
She  laughed  herself  to  water  ;  laughed  to  fire  ; 
Laughed  the  torrential  laugh  of  dam  and  sire 

Full  of  the  marrowy  race. 
Her  laughter,  Gods  !  was  flesh  on  skeleton.' 

It  is  all  made  so  important,  so  solid.     The  moods  of  the  weather 
become  concrete. 


MEREDITH  211 

'Yonder  came  smells  of  the  gorse,  so  nutty, 

Gold-like  and  warm  :  it 's  the  prime  of  May. 
Better  than  mortar,  brick  and  putty, 

Is  God's  house  on  a  blowing  day. 
Lean  me  more  up  the  mound  ;  now  I  feel  it : 

All  the  old  heath-smells  !     Ain't  it  strange  ? 
There 's  the  world  laughing,  as  if  to  conceal  it, 

But  He's  by  us,  juggling  the  change.' 

It  is  difficult  to  say  what  pleases  most  in  this  poem, 
the  brave  trip  of  the  dying  humour  of  life  slipping  into 
the  close,  or  the  free,  careless  description  of  natural 
objects,  as  if  death  were  a  matter  of  unconcern.  Jerry 
pretends  not  to  know,  but  you  know  he  does  know.  It 
is  like  a  man  stroking  a  cobra. 

In  these  poems  there  is  an  impudence  of  insistent 
personality  that  makes  them  great  literature.  They 
are  deliberately  contrived,  deliberately  and  successfully 
contrived,  to  be  unlike  anything  else,  and  this  difference 
is  pleasing.  One's  own  personality  feels  contagiously 
that  it  rides  lightly  over  life. 

Part  of  this  feeling  of  irresponsible  ascendency  is 
produced  by  Meredith's  amazing  command  of  the  lilt. 
It  is  this  which  makes  <  Phoebus  with  Admetus,' 
forgiving  its  very  ordinary  chorus,  what  it  is,  like 
spring  rain  tinkling  on  the  grass  ;  and  it  is  this  which, 
as  much  as  its  other  divine  qualities,  places  much  of 
the  completed  '  Love  in  the  Valley '  (as  a  whole  it  is 
prolix)  among  the  completest  triumphs  of  Art. 

How  beautifully  made  this  poem  is  any  one  can  see 
who  places  it  beside  its  ineffective  original.  To  write  a 
simple  poem  about  a  simple  country  girl !  Almost 
any  one  could  do  that ;  but  to  write  of  simplicity  with 
a  gem-like  artifice,  that  was  reserved  for  Meredith. 
Stevenson  said  of  one  verse,  in  the  original,  that  it 


212  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

intoxicated  him  like  new  wine.  It  is  the  only  verse 
that  is  retained,  and  the  whole  completed  poem  has  this 
effect.  There  is  in  it  the  anxious  delicate  amorousness 
of  senses  which  are  healthy,  and  with  this  undercurrent 
of  sweet  trembling  and  pensive  naturalism  there  goes 
the  eye  of  the  connoisseur.  There  are  verses  that  only 
Meredith  could  have  written  : — 

'  Cool  was  the  woodside  ;  cool  as  her  white  dairy 

Keeping  sweet  the  cream-pan  ;  and  there  the  boys  from  school, 
Cricketing  below,  rushed  brown  and  red  with  sunshine  ; 

O  the  dark  translucence  of  the  deep-eyed  cool ! 
Spying  from  the  farm,  herself  she  fetched  a  pitcher 

Full  of  milk,  and  tilted  for  each  in  turn  the  beak. 
Then  a  little  fellow,  mouth  up  and  on  tiptoe, 

Said,  "  I  will  kiss  you  "  :  she  laughed  and  leaned  her  cheek.' 

And  there  are  verses,  so  perfect  is  the  art,  that  it  seems 
only  Nature  could  have  written  : — 

'  All  the  girls  are  out  with  their  baskets  for  the  primrose  ; 

Up  lanes,  woods  through,  they  troop  in  joyful  bands. 
My  sweet  leads  :  she  knows  not  why,  but  now  she  loiters, 

Eyes  the  bent  anemones,  and  hangs  her  hands. 
Such  a  look  will  tell  that  the  violets  are  peeping, 

Coming  the  rose  :  and  unaware  a  cry 
Springs  in  her  bosom  for  odours  and  for  colour, 

Covert  and  the  nightingale  ;  she  knows  not  why.' 

The  ecstasy  of  this  music  is  produced  not  merely  by 
the  lilt,  but  by  its  interruption, — '  and  hangs  her  hands,' 
as  if  a  ripple  were  to  hesitate  in  coming  over ;  the 
omitted  accent 

'  Eyes  the  bent  anemones '  (stoops)  *  and  hangs  her  hands  ' 
being  replaced  by  a  pause.  And  this  artifice,  simple  as 
it  is,  in  the  hands  of  so  consummate  an  artist  has  the 
effect  of  witchery.  Its  frequent  repetition  yields  the 
effect  of  a  second  or  inner  music,  following  and  mock- 
ing the  light  tripping  rhythm  of  the  whole.  It  has 


MEREDITH  213 

been  objected  by  some  critics  that  *  Love  in  the  Valley  ' 
is  artificial.  Other  critics  have  complained  that  Burns 
wrote  love  songs.  *  The  qualities  of  sugar  remain  with 
sugar,  and  those  of  salt  with  salt.' 

As  great  triumphs,  though  triumphs  in  another  note, 
Meredith  achieves  in  his  later  ballads.  For  the  purpose 
of  these  poems  of  love  and  war,  *  Attila,'  '  Archduchess 
Anne,'  '  The  Song  of  Theodolinda,'  '  A  Preaching  from 
a  Spanish  Ballad,'  *  King  Harald's  Trance,'  he  has  in- 
vented, to  use  Mr.  de  Selincourt's  word,  a  form  of  poetical 
'  shorthand  '  like  the  jobbing  strokes  of  a  chopper  : — 

*  Her  he  eyed  :  his  judgement  was  one  word, 
Foulbed  !  and  she  fell :  the  blow  clove  two.' 

It  is  necessary  to  become  familiar  with  the  language  ; 
but,  this  done,  it  is  easily  seen  that  there  are  no  short 
poems  more  vivid,  and  none  so  barely  dramatic.  In 
narrative  dramatic  poetry,  even  when  the  narrator  re- 
frains from  explicit  comment,  you  can  generally  discover 
from  the  underlying  emotion  where  his  sympathies  are. 
But  these  poems  are  entirely  pure  of  any  comment  by 
the  artist's  emotion,  and  give  the  separate  actions  and 
ecstasies  for  what  they  are  worth.  It  is  true  their  range 
is  not  wide,  and  their  brutal  strength  largely  due  to 
their  being  about  brutes — about  a  brute  of  a  husband,  or 
a  religious  brute  like  the  self-cherishing  Theodolinda. 
They  are  not  the  highest  poetry,  and  are  worth  no  more 
than  themselves,  but  for  naked  effectiveness  they  stand 
alone.  Rembrandt  painted  a  carcass. 

Critics  who  read  '  The  Empty  Purse '  have  been  so 
occupied  with  explaining  that  Meredith  was  not  a 
finished  artist  that  they  have  omitted  to  notice  that  he 
was.  For  sheer  artistry  Meredith  stands  by  himself 


2i4  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

among  modern  poets.  Tennyson  was  sufficiently  an 
artist  to  display  the  poet  Tennyson.  Meredith  is  artist 
enough  to  make  a  poet : — 

'  Prophetic  of  the  coming  joy  and  strife, 
Like  the  wild  western  war-chief  sinking 
Calm  to  the  end  he  eyes  unblinking, 
Earth's  voice  is  jubilant  in  ebbing  life.1 

He  for  his  happy  hunting-fields, 

Forgets  the  droning  chant,  and  yields 

His  numbered  breaths  to  exultation 

In  the  proud  anticipation  : 

Shouting  the  glories  of  his  nation, 

Shouting  the  grandeur  of  his  race, 

Shouting  his  own  great  deeds  of  daring  : 

And  when  at  last  death  grasps  his  face, 

And  stiffened  on  the  ground  in  peace 
He  lies  with  all  his  painted  terrors  glaring  ; 
Hushed  are  the  tribe  to  hear  a  threading  cry  : 

Not  from  the  dead  man  ; 

Not  from  the  standers-by  : 

The  spirit  of  the  red  man 
Is  welcomed  by  his  fathers  up  on  high.' 

The  sharp  e's  and  o's  with  the  shrill  i  between — 

'  Not  from  the  dead  man  ; 
Not  from  the  standers-by  : 
The  spirit  of  the  red  man  '- 

are  like  pistol-shots  ;  then  the  music  mellows,  shoots  up, 
and  is  gone,  the  air  of  the  concert-room  still  thrilling 
with  the  recent  quickly  successive  sounds.  Qualis 
artifex  ! 

There  are  two  Nature  poems  of  Meredith's  dear  to 
lovers  of  his  philosophy,  but  which  even  on  his  first 
readers  must  exercise  an  arresting  effect.  The  opening 


1  '  Earth's  voice.'  In  the  text  '  Her  voice ' ;  'her'  referring  to  Earth, 
mentioned  five  or  six  lines  earlier  in  the  '  Ode  to  the  Spirit  of  Earth 
in  Autumn.' 


MEREDITH  215 

passage  of  '  Hard  Weather '  is  the  nearest  thing  to  a 
breezy  morning  on  the  high  Downs  that  has  yet  got  on 
paper : — 

•^**» 

'  Shrill  underfoot  the  grassblade  shrews, 
At  gallop,  clumped,  and  down  the  croft 
Bestrid  by  shadows,  beaten,  tossed  ; 
It  seems  a  scythe,  it  seems  a  rod. 
The  howl  is  up  at  the  howl's  accost ; 
The  shivers  greet  and  the  shivers  nod. 

Is  the  land  ship?  we  are  rolled,  we  drive 

Tritonly,  cleaving  hiss  and  hum  ; 

Whirl  with  the  dead,  or  mount  or  dive, 

Or  down  in  dregs,  or  on  in  scum. 

And  drums  the  distant,  pipes  the  near, 

And  vale  and  hill  are  grey  in  grey, 

As  when  the  surge  is  crumbling  sheer, 

And  sea-mews  wing  the  haze  of  spray. 

Clouds — are  they  bony  witches  ? — swarms, 

Darting  swift  on  the  robber's  flight, 

Hurry  an  infant  sky  in  arms  : 

It  peeps,  it  becks  ;  'tis  day,  'tis  night. 

Black  while  over  the  loop  of  blue 

The  swathe  is  closed,  like  shroud  on  corse. 

Lo,  as  if  swift  the  Furies  flew, 

The  Fates  at  heel  at  a  cry  to  horse  ! ' 

*  The  South- Wester,'  published  in  1888,  maybe  com- 
pared with  '  The  South- West  Wind  in  the  Woodland  ' 
of  1 85 1.1  There  is  a  difference  of  thirty-seven  years, 
but  also  that  between  a  good  description  and  actual 
sight.  The  transmutation  of  the  clouds  is  a  visible 
process  : — 

'  A  murky  cloud  a  fair  pursued, 
Assailed,  and  felt  the  limbs  elude  : 
He  sat  him  down  to  pipe  his  woe, 
And  some  strange  beast  of  sky  became  : 
A  giant's  club  withheld  the  blow  ; 
A  milky  cloud  went  all  to  flame.' 


1  See  note  on  page  202. 


2i6  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

How  is  one  to  give  the  effect  of  sky  and  air? 

'  Day  of  the  cloud  in  fleets  !     O  day 
Of  wedded  white  and  blue,  that  sail 
Immingled,  with  a  footing  ray 
In  shadow-sandals  down  our  vale  ! — 
And  swift  to  ravish  golden  meads, 
Swift  up  the  run  of  turf  it  speeds, 
Thy  bright  of  head  and  dark  of  heel, 
To  where  the  hilltop  flings  on  sky, 
As  hawk  from  wrist  or  dust  from  wheel, 
The  tiptoe  sealers  tossed  to  fly.' 

There  is  a  huddle  of  compressed  language,  like  the 
shift  of  light  and  blast  of  wind,  the  sort  of  bewildering 
of  awakened  senses  one  gets  on  such  a  day.  And  this  is 
due  to  the  manner.  Yes,  but  a  supreme  manner  brings 
matter  with  it,  the  only  possible  matter.  *  In  speaking,' 
writes  Emerson,  'of  I  know  not  what  style,  Words- 
worth said  "to  be  sure,  it  was  the  manner,  but  then 
you  know  the  matter  always  comes  out  of  the 
manner." 

Of  Meredith's  manner  it  is  necessary  to  add  that  so 
complete  an  artist  does  he  train  himself  to  be,  he  some- 
times writes  verse  of  the  highest  descriptive  quality 
wholly  free  from  artifice,  verse  like  this  from  the  '  Ode 
to  the  Spirit  of  Earth  in  Autumn,' — 

*  The  crimson-footed  nymph  is  panting  up  the  glade, 

With  the  wine-jar  at  her  arm-pit,  and  the  drunken  ivy-braid 

Round  her  forehead,  breasts,  and  thighs  :  starts  a  Satyr,  and  they 

speed : 

Hear  the  crushing  of  the  leaves  :  hear  the  crackling  of  the  bough  ! 
And  the  whistling  of  the  bramble,  the  piping  of  the  weed' ; 

or  like  this  from  '  Bellerophon,' — 

'  The  cottagers  who  dole  him  fruit  and  crust, 
With  patient  inattention  hear  him  prate  : 
And  comes  the  snow,  and  comes  the  dust, 
Comes  the  old  wanderer,  more  bent  of  late.' 


MEREDITH  217 

We  come  to  the  second  class  of  Meredith's  poems, 
those  poems  which,  being  poems,  are  chiefly  remark- 
able for  their  philosophy  or  thought.  Meredith  is 
-emphatically  a  modern  writer,  and  this  modernity  shows 
itself,  in  a  hundred  ways,  all  through  his  poetry.  The 

*  Poems  of  the  English  Roadside,'  'The  Old  Chartist,' 

*  The  Patriot  Engineer,'  good  and  less  good,  deal  with 
subjects  so  little  defined,  so  trivial  or  so  intellectual,  as 
to  exclude  them  from   any   but  a  modern  anthology. 
4  Juggling  Jerry  '  is  as  modern  a  way  of  saying  what 
one  wants  to  say  as  'Caliban  upon  Setebos'  or  'Bishop 
Blougram's  Apology.'      The  '  Ballads  and  Poems  of 
Tragic  Life  '   are   poems  of  to-day  in   their  absorbed 
interest  in  purely  external  action,  action  interesting  for 
action's  sake  without  aid   from  the   poet's   sentiment. 

*  The  South- Wester '  has  an  equally  absorbed  interest 
in  pure  description  ;  it  deals  with  Nature  in  the  fashion 
first  taught  by  Emerson's  '  May  Day.'     '  The  Appease- 
ment of  Demeter  '  and  '  Earth  and  a  Wedded  Woman  ' 
are  characteristically  modern  in  their  indifference  to  the 
subject ;  an  indifference  Arnold  rebuked  in  his  famous 
preface  to  his    reprinted    poems  of  1853,  a  rebuke  to 
which  modern  poetry  has  turned  an  ear  increasingly 
deaf.     '  Love  in  the  Valley  '  itself  has  no  action,  and 
.a  hundred   years   ago  even    Wordsworth   would    not 
have  attempted  the   extended   theme.      The   critics  of 
1800  made  themselves  merry  with  what  happened  in 
Wordsworth's  poems  about  people.      This   is  to   say 
that  something  generally  did  happen.1 

1  To  meet  the  enemy's  instance,  the  'Idiot  Boy' was  lost.  In 
'The  Brothers'  the  action  is  outside  the  poem,  but  the  greater  part 
is  occupied  with  reminiscences  of  the  one  who  was  killed.  I  do  not 
say  there  are  not  exceptions.  There  are,  of  course,  many  purely 
•  descriptive  poems  of  flowers,  yew-trees,  natural  objects. 


218  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

In  '  Modern  Love  '  Meredith  broke  ground  which  in 
some  sort  he  claimed  to  be  new.  In  this  poem  or 
poems,  sonnet  sequence  or  sequence  of  poems  the 
Sonnet  is  proud  to  claim,  we  have  love-poetry  of  a 
new  sort,  poetry  not  about  love  in  its  fruition  but  in  its 
decay,  the  detail  of  the  irritant  tedium  of  its  absence 
and  not  the  passion  of  its  rupture.  We  have  here 
neither  Borneo  and  Juliet  nor  Othello,  but  the  minu- 
tiae of  what  happens  in  the  odd  numbers  of  any 
terrace. 

It  is  not  the  generous  passion  of  the  play-books, 
simple,  and  with  *  the  dignity  of  dumb  real  objects/ 
that  is  here  celebrated,  the  desire  past  reason  for  some 
particular  other — Francesca,  Helen,  '  Anna  with  the 
gowden  locks.'  Equally  clearly  it  is  not  the  love 
celebrated  by  Tennyson  with  individual  delicacy  in 
'  Maud,'  the  feeling  of  the  pure  man  for  the  pure  maid  ; 
a  love  which  looks  upon  the  beloved  at  once  as  mother, 
wife,  and  daughter,  which  has  something  of  fatherly 
protection  in  it,  looks  as  a  son  for  support,  and  yet 
amid  both  cherishes  the  idea  of  equal  mating.  This 
feeling,  which  is  quite  modern, — *  I  have  led  her  home, 
my  love,  my  only  friend,' — is  by  no  means  the  feeling 
analysed  in  Meredith's  poem.  The  senses  are  by  no 
means  absent  in  '  Modern  Love,'  though  they  are 
played  with  and  controlled  by  the  observing  intellect. 
This  it  is  which  gives  it  its  bitter  and  incisive  truth  : — 

*  What  are  we  first  ?     First,  animals  :  and  next 
Intelligences  at  a  leap.' 

Tennyson  speaks  of  an  ideal,  which,  however,  to-day 
is  sometimes  realised  by  the  young.  Meredith  de- 
scribes a  mental  state  which,  in  a  late  civilisation,  is- 


MEREDITH  219 

not  uncommon  with  middle  age.  The  aesthete 
and  the  moralist  both  complain  that  the  subject  is 
unpleasing.1  What  is  worth  observation  is  that  the 
subject  is  not  one  that  lends  itself  easily  to  poetical 
treatment.  Indeed,  without  Meredith's  treatment  to 
assist  our  judgment,  we  might  think  that  for  poetical 
purposes  it  was  impossible.  But  Meredith  has  used 
it  for  a  poetical  purpose.  It  is  not  the  noblest  poetry  in 
all  the  world,  but  it  is  a  noble  poem. 

How  has  he  managed  to  effect  this  ? 

In  two  ways.  In  the  first  place  he  surrounds  the 
poem,  which  is  very  particular  in  its  emotions,  with 
emotion  of  a  general  kind — emotion  so  fluent,  and 
speaking  so  widely  of  the  sense  of  passion's  loss, 
that  at  the  beginning  and  end  we  are  not  dealing  with 
the  actual  subject  at  all.  And  this  breadth  of  opening 
and  closing  tone  affects  the  whole  impression. 

In  the  second  place,  not  always,  but  exceedingly 
often,  the  slack  detail  is  lifted  into  the  tense  world  of 
poetry.  The  grave  intensity  of  observation  saves  the 
poet  again  and  again.  'There  is  no  object,'  says 
Emerson,  '  which  intense  light  does  not  make  beautiful.' 
The  high  seriousness  is  the  high  seriousness  of  lived 

1  The  critic  in  the  Spectator,  May  24,  1862 — the  critic  of  whom 
Swinburne  fell  foul — 'falls  foul  of  Mr.  Meredith  for  dealing  with 
"a  deep  and  painful  subject  on  which  he  has  no  conviction  to 
express." '  This  was  to  give  himself  into  Swinburne's  hands. 
The  play  of  Hamlet  has  no  conviction  to  express.  But  what 
made  the  critic  express  himself  thus  adversely  was  that  he  felt 
the  subject  was  unpleasing.  But  to  say  this,  though  true,  would 
not  have  been  to  offer  criticism.  Poetry  not  only  is  entitled  to 
deal  but  must  deal  constantly  with  unpleasing  subjects.  The 
real  question  is  whether,  in  any  given  instance,  the  subject  is  too 
unpleasing  so  to  be  treated  as  to  yield  poetical  pleasure.  It  is 
always  difficult  to  answer  this  question  a  priori  \  the  treatment 
answers  it. 


220  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

emotion.  Phases  of  feeling  so  felt  become  crises  of 
the  heart  :— 

'  At  dinner,  she  is  hostess,  I  am  host. 
Went  the  feast  ever  cheerfuller  ?     She  keeps 
The  Topic  over  intellectual  deeps 
In  buoyancy  afloat.     They  see  no  ghost. 
With  sparkling  surface-eyes  we  ply  the  ball  : 
It  is  in  truth  a  most  contagious  game  : 
HIDING  THE  SKELETON  shall  be  its  name. 
Such  play  as  this,  the  devils  might  appal ! 
But  here  's  the  greater  wonder  ;  in  that  we 
Enamoured  of  an  acting  nought  can  tire, 
Each  other,  like  true  hypocrites,  admire  ; 
Warm-lighted  looks,  Love's  ephemerioe, 
Shoot  gaily  o'er  the  dishes  and  the  wine. 
We  waken  envy  of  our  happy  lot. 
Fast,  sweet,  and  golden,  shows  the  marriage-knot. 
Dear  guests,  you  now  have  seen  Love's  corpse-light  shine.' 

To  write  that  sonnet  and  twenty  others  like  it  was 
to  step  twenty  years  forward  in  the  march  of  modern 
poetry  ;  to  combine  them  all  with  a  single  seriousness, 
so  that  their  effect  was  not  separate,  was  to  do  what  the 
later  century  was  trying  to  do.  It  was  to  emotionalise 
mental  states.  Whatever  poetical  judgment  may  ulti- 
mately be  passed  on  *  Modern  Love,'  its  place  in  the 
history  of  the  new  poetical  movement  will  be  that  of 
the  first  miracle.1 


1  'Modern  Love5  has  two  outstanding  weaknesses  :  (a)  It  is  a  tale 
of  love  ceasing  to  burn,  and  then  sputtering  out.  Two  wedded 
people  cease  to  love  mutually — that  is  all.  Unless  there  is  scandal  to 
force  a  crisis,  the  unhappy  partnership  continues,  and  the  tale  is  the 
tale  of  two  lives  dragging  on.  The  stately  end  invented  by  Meredith 
is  not  true  to  life.  It  is  a  concession  to  the  claims  of  traditional 
art,  and  while  there  is  thus  a  gain  in  poetical  effect,  it  is  at  the 
expense  of  the  truth  of  Nature. 

(b]  *  Modern  Love '  suffers  greatly  from  an  obscurity  *  outside  the 
poem.'  The  poem  is  for  Meredith  singularly  clear  in  language,  but 


MEREDITH  221 

Later  in  life  Meredith  returned  to  the  discussion  of 
modern  sex  relations,  but  the  subject  of  'The  Sage 
Enamoured  and  the  Honest  Lady  '  was,  for  the  purposes 
of  poetry,  beyond  him.  Despite  some  occasional 
flashes  of  the  highest  descriptive  imagination,1  he  does 
not  produce  a  successful  poem.  More  often  even  than 
usual,  flogging  like  the  rider  of  a  beaten  horse,  he 
indulges  in 

1  That  sly  temptation  of  the  illumined  brain, 
Deliveries  oracular,  self-spun.' 

Indeed  this  is  not  enough  to  say  of  so  prevailing 
an  obscurity.  It  is  almost  as  if  the  language  were 
studiedly  difficult,  as  if  the  writer  were  not  desirous  to  be 
plain.  What  is  probably  true  is  that  throughout  he  was 
uneasily  conscious  how  simply  he  could  spoil  all  by  an 
over-definiteness,  or  by  neglecting  at  any  time  any  side 


the  story  it  tells  is  not  clear.  You  have  to  read  it  two  or  three  times 
to  puzzle  out  a  story  which  is  more  implied  than  told  :  to  find  out, 
for  example,  that  '  Madam '  is  the  hero's  wife,  and  '  My  Lady '  a 
former  flame  '  relumed,'  or  that  the  hero  sometimes  speaks  in  the 
first  person,  sometimes  in  the  third  ;  or  to  puzzle  out  the  particular 
turn  of  events  preceding  the  particular  sonnet  remarking  upon 
them.  When  such  things  have  been  ascertained  (and  they  are  ascer- 
tainable)  the  poem  is  plain.  In  fact,  the  series  of  sonnets  is  a  series 
of  comments  by  Meredith  (standing  in  the  hero's  shoes)  on  scenes 
fully  played  out  before  him.  When  you,  too,  know  the  scenes,  the 
comment  is  as  plain  to  you  as  to  Meredith.  But  it  is  a  great  defect 
in  Art  not  to  make  one's  story  clear  at  first  reading.  It  is  the  one 
thing  perhaps  that  in  narrative  poetry,  at  first  reading,  can  be  made 
wholly  clear.  Here  again  there  is  a  concession,  though  an  uncon- 
scious one.  To  be  very  explicit  about  matters  so  very  often  merely 
matters  of  prose  would  have  made  the  subject  still  harder  to  poeti- 
calise.  These  weaknesses  emphasise  the  extreme  difficulty  of  the 
undertaking. 

1  *  Her  eyes  were  the  sweet  world  desired  of  souls, 
With  something  of  a  wavering  line  unspelt.' 


222  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

of  truth.  The  main  thesis  is  simple.  Nature  forms 
a  harmonising  background  to  the  poem,  but  in  the 
definite  argument  she  is  made  use  of  only  to  say  that 
we  could  borrow  from  her  a  more  equal  view.  In 
societies  the  balance  between  man  and  woman  is  un- 
equally weighted.  The  way  of  lightening  suggested 
is  a  distribution  of  the  penalty. 

As  express  contributions  to  the  sociological  discus- 
sion, such  pronouncements  are  now  the  commonplaces 
of  Ethics,  and  yet  the  <  lyric  has  a  tone.'1  Clearly  its 
content  is  not  exhausted  by  these  statements.  We 
must  consider  what  is  implied  by  the  atmosphere  of 
difficulty  and  irresolution.  All  through,  Meredith  ap- 
pears to  be  conscious  of  the  existence  of  a  deeper  ill 
than  any  for  which  he  knows  the  remedy.  The  poem 
at  once  disturbs  and  uplifts.  It  indicates  a  depth  which 
Meredith  does  not  fathom,  which  he  knows  is  properly 
unfathomable.  On  such  subjects  it  is  especially  true 
that  law  and  custom,  however  wise — certainly  when 
they  are  wise — can  never  cover  the  ground  which  is 
occupied  by  feeling.  Nature  and  society  can  never  be 
identified.  There  are  antinomies  everywhere,  and  it  is 
because  the  poem  is  generously  aware  of  them,  and 
indeed  takes  in,  in  its  <  blind  sight,'  the  whole  of  the 
human  consciousness,  that  it  achieves  at  all. 

And  in  truth,  this  is  a  large  part  of  what  poetry  as 
opposed  to  sociology  can  do  here,  it  can  give  an 
atmosphere,  it  can  humanise,  it  can  meliorate ;  and 
as  much  as  this,  this  effort,  for  all  that  it  is  but 
broken  speech,  does,  somehow,  in  its  strange  way, 


1  he  sang  not  Nature's  own 
Divinest,  but  his  lyric  had  a  tone, 
As  'twere  a  forest-echo  of  her  voice.' 


MEREDITH  223 

manage  to  do.  One  feels,  as  one  struggles  through 
the  thorns  and  brambles  of  the  language,  that  one  has 
come,  for  once,  upon  a  competent  attitude. 

This  poem,  written  in  an  offensively  packed  style, 
and  in  some  passages  merely  decipherable  in  meaning, 
speaking  with  a  parade  of  reserve  wisdom,  discreet, 
suggestive,  inconclusive,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
failures  in  modern  literature.  There  is  no  bridge,  for 
we  are  not  taken  to  the  other  side  of  the  stream  ;  the 
subject  is  not  made  into  the  subject  of  a  poem,  but  we 
may  say  that  something — a  broken  rainbow  perhaps— 
stretches  across.  We  have  suggested  to  us  the  way  in 
which  such  topics  can  be  treated  in  poetry.  Meredith 
teaches  us  at  least  the  method  of  approach.  Without 
making  his  subject  into  a  poem,  he  has  succeeded  in 
poeticalising  his  subject.  He  has  lifted  it  into  the 
category  of  poetry. 

If  one  can  say  so  much  of  a  botched  splendour  like 
'The  Sage  Enamoured  and  the  Honest  Lady,'  it  will 
be  easy  to  say  the  same  of  the  more  perspicuous  '  Ballad 
of  Fair  Ladies  in  Revolt.*  The  tone  is  much  lighter, 
as  befits  verses  dealing  with  a  claim  viewed  from  its 
political,  not  its  moral  side,  but  otherwise  the  same 
criticism  can  be  repeated  in  small.  On  the  lesser 
subject  Meredith,  without  being  successful,  comes  a 
little  nearer  success.  And  yet  the  fact  that  he  misses 
success,  does  not  bring  the  thing  off,  is  the  primary 
fact.  One  notices  this,  and  then  that  the  whole  subject 
of  '  Women's  Rights  '  is  surveyed  with  a  genial 
understanding.  This  is  how  gentlefolk  of  both  sexes, 
cultivated  people  in  touch  with  each  other,  should 
handle  their  divergencies.  But  the  poem  is  too 
debonair ;  there  is  an  artifice  of  manner,  the  argument 


224  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

crossing  and  recrossing  as  in  the  preconcerted  figures 
of  the  dance.  Judged  as  a  poem  '  A  Ballad  of  Fair 
Ladies  in  Revolt '  does  no  more  than  indicate  a 
temper. 

'  Men  rail  at  such  a  singer  ;  women  thrill 
Responsively.' 

The  advocates  of  Sex  equality  have,  here,  lent  to  their 
doctrine  the  dignity  of  grace,  and  it  is  perhaps  not 
strange  that  the  less  imaginative  sex  should,  in  this 
instance,  be  the  more  apt  to  appreciate  the  value  of 
suggestion.  In  this  field  Meredith  was  the  first ;  his 
poems  dealing  with  the  modern  relations  of  the  sexes 
are  his  special  contribution  to  modern  poetry. 

In  his  greater  contribution,  his  promulgation  in  verse 
of  the  Philosophy  of  Earth,  he  had  been  anticipated  by 
Emerson.  In  general  his  doctrines  are  the  same  ;  a 
confidence  in  the  worth  of  the  process,  and  we  even  find 
in  Emerson  that  way  of  speaking  of  the  Great  Mother 
which  we  familiarly  know  as  Meredithian  : — 

*  Where  are  these  men  ?     Asleep  beneath  their  grounds 
And  strangers,  fond  as  they,  their  furrows  plough. 
Earth  laughs  in  flowers,  to  see  her  boastful  boys 
Earth-proud,  proud  of  the  earth  which  is  not  theirs.' 1 

But  the  differences  are  more  striking  than  the  similarity. 
Emerson  has  no  weak  sentimentality,  Meredith  is  anti- 
sentiment.  He  goes  out  of  his  way  to  proclaim  his 
disrespect  for  senility,  the  one  god  men  continue  to 
honour,  for  thus  they  hope  to  be  deified  : — 


1  Emerson — '  Hamatreya.'  If  one  were  asked  who  wrote  the  last 
two  lines,  one  would  say  Meredith.  Even  the  adjectival  Meredithian 
compound  is  supplied. 


MEREDITH  225 


'  Thy  frame  is  as  a  dusty  mantle  hung, 
O  grey  one  !  pendant  on  a  loosened  peg. 
Thou  art  for  this  our  life  an  ancient  egg.' 

That  is  direct. 

1  Her  gabbling  grey  Earth  eyes  askant,  nor  treads 
The  ways  they  walk  ;  by  what  they  speak  oppressed.' 

That  is  equally  so,  and  Meredith  has  even  a  whole 
poem,  one  of  his  most  metaphorical,  '  The  Last 
Contention,' l  in  which  he  reviles  the  old  man 

1  Whose  toothless  Winter  claws  at  May.' 

For  Age  is  neither  life  nor  the  promise  of  life,  and 
must  not,  in  a  last  efflorescence,  hope  to  emulate  the 
naturally  young.  The  office  of  Senex  is  quite 
different;  'to  admire  uncravingly,'  and  to  consider 
what  of  life's  glory  meets  his  eye  merely  as  a  rosy 
cloud  that  crosses,  to  leave,  the  grey  evening  of  his  days. 
On  other  subjects,  provinces  of  general  pathos, 
Meredith  is  as  close  to  the  bare  fact.  We  shed  a  good 
many  tears  over  the  inhumanity  of  nature  ;  still,  to  put 
it  in  another  way,  it  is  natural  to  be  inhumane.  These 
laws  may  not  please  us,  but  they  remain  laws — 

*  All  round  we  find  cold  Nature  slight 
The  feelings  of  the  totter-knee'd.' 

It  is  this  universal  struggle  that  makes  life  '  tragic  life.' 
Take  it  away  and  we  are  engaged  in  '  a  May  game,'  or 


1  'The  Last  Contention'  apparently  is  directed  against  'Four 
Score'  mating.  But,  using  that  as  a  second  metaphor,  it  may  also 
be  taken  to  deprecate  any  intrusion  of  Age  into  the  province  of  youth. 
One  should  marry  before  forty,  but  also  one  should  write  one's  love 
lyrics  and  fight  one's  Jenas  then. 

P 


226  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

as    Meredith   ironically   has   it   in    his    '  Whimper   of 

Sympathy' — 

«, 

1  Hawk  or  shrike  has  done  this  deed 
Of  downy  feathers  :  rueful  sight ! 
Sweet  sentimentalist,  invite 
Your  bosom's  Power  to  intercede. 

O  it  were  pleasant,  with  you 

To  fly  from  this  tussle  of  foes, 

The  shambles,  the  charnel,  the  wrinkle  ! 

To  dwell  in  yon  dribble  of  dew 

On  the  cheek  of  your  sovereign  rose, 

And  live  the  young  life  of  a  twinkle.' 

And  this  struggle  goes  by  rule ;  the  stronger,  the 
more  social,  or  the  better  trained  wins.  A  pack  of 
wolves  pulls  down  the  deer,  just  as  a  hunt  company 
wears  down  the  fox  : — 

'Wild,  my  poor  friend,  has  the  fate  to  be  chased  ; 
Civil  will  conquer  :  were't  other  'twere  worse.' 

This  is  sound  gospel ;  but  the  irony  is  rather  bitter, 
as  if  coming  from  a  man  who  had  once  found  its  pure 
milk  sour  in  the  mouth.  A  poet  does  not  become  an 
anti-sentimentalist  without  having  had,  to  start  with, 
some  flush  of  sentiment,  and  '  The  Doe  '  explains  how, 
thirty  years  later,  '  Young  Reynard  '  came  to  be  written. 
Emerson  writes  neither. 

Something  of  this  provoked  irony  creeps  out,  at 
times,  in  Meredith's  later  verse.  There  is  a  trace  of 
iron  which  we  do  not  find  in  the  poet  of  '  May  Day.' 
He  likes  to  choose  a  sentimental  subject  and  to  be 
unsentimental. 

One  of  the  most  sentimental  subjects  is  the  way  of 
transition,  and  Longfellow,  the  poet  of  sentiment,  loves 
to  tell  us  how  in  human  life  there  is  the  lament  for  loss. 


MEREDITH  227 

The  grass  returns  every  spring,  but  our  loved  ones  or 
our  youth  are  gone  with  'the  grass  of  yester-year.' 
Children  form  a  subject  that  affords  an  opening,  for 
they  do  not  remain  children.  There  comes  a  time 
when  the  house  that  was  once  bright  with  their  voices 
is  vacant  of  their  laughter  : — 

'The  old  house  by  the  lindens 

Stood  silent  in  the  shade, 
And  on  the  gravelled  pathway 
The  light  and  shadow  played. 

I  saw  the  nursery  windows 

Wide  open  to  the  air  ; 
But  the  faces  of  the  children, 

They  were  no  longer  there. 

The  large  Newfoundland  house-dog 

Was  standing  by  the  door  ; 
He  looked  for  his  little  playmates, 

Who  would  return  no  more. 

They  walked  not  under  the  lindens 

They  played  not  in  the  hall ; 
But  shadow,  and  silence,  and  sadness, 

Were  hanging  over  all. 

The  birds  sang  in  the  branches, 

With  sweet,  familiar  tone  ; 
But  the  voices  of  the  children 

Will  be  heard  in  dreams  alone  ! 

And  the  boy  that  walked  beside  me, 

He  could  not  understand 
Why  closer  in  mine,  ah  !  closer, 

I  pressed  his  warm,  soft  hand  ! ' 

It  is  amusing  to  contrast  with  this  Meredith's  '  Change 
in  Recurrence.'  We  are  not  bound  to  suppose  that 
the  girl  he  loved  has  died  ;  it  is  sufficient  that  time 
passes  and  that  she  has  become  the  mate  of  another,  or 
merely  that  she  has  grown  up  and  gone  elsewhere. 


228  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

There  are  many  reasons  why  '  le  beau  temps  ne  revien- 
dra,'  but  I  think  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  Meredith 
implies  the  gravest  reason  : — 

1  I  stood  at  the  gate  of  the  cot 

Where  my  darling,  with  side-glance  demure, 
Would  spy,  on  her  trim  garden-plot, 

The  busy  wild  things  chase  and  lure. 
For  these  with  their  ways  were  her  feast 

They  had  surety  no  enemy  lurked. 
Their  deftest  of  tricks  to  their  least, 

She  gathered  in  watch  as  she  worked. 

When  berries  were  red  on  her  ash, 

The  blackbird  would  rifle  them  rough, 
Till  the  ground  underneath  looked  a  gash, 

And  her  rogue  grew  the  round  of  a  chough. 
The  squirrel  cocked  ear  o'er  his  hoop, 

Up  the  spruce,  quick  as  eye,  trailing  brush. 
She  knew  any  tit  of  the  troop 

All  as  well  as  the  snail-tapping  thrush. 

I  gazed  :  'twas  the  scene  of  the  frame, 

With  the  face,  the  dear  life  for  me,  fled. 
No  window  a  lute  to  my  name, 

No  watcher  there  plying  the  thread. 
But  the  blackbird  hung  pecking  at  will ; 

The  squirrel  from  cone  hopped  to  cone  ; 
The  thrush  had  a  snail  in  his  bill, 

And  tap-tapped  the  shell  hard  on  a  stone.' 

In  Longfellow's  poem,  so  much  insistence  is  laid  on 
the  instability  of  human  affairs  that  we  hardly  notice 
the  permanence  of  nature.  It  is  introduced  as  an 
aggravation  of  the  pathos  : — 

*  How  can  ye  chant  ye  little  birds, 
And  I  sae  weary,  fu'  o'  care,' 

but  that  is  all.  In  Meredith  so  much  stress  is  laid  on 
the  continuance  of  the  process  that  the  human  sorrow 
is  forgotten.  There  seems  a  little  more  than  human 
willingness  to  be  contented  '  if  birth  proceeds,  if  things 


MEREDITH  229 

subsist.'  It  is  a  very  beautiful  and  surprising  poem, 
this  painting  of  the  absence  of  feeling  which  lingers  on 
the  mind  almost  like  a  sentiment, — the  sentiment  of  no 
sentiment, — but  it  is  not  quite  a  natural  poem  :  the 
thrush  tap-taps  his  snail  needlessly  hard.  Meredith  is 
a  little  too  anxious  not  to  be  Longfellow.  We  suspect, 
therefore,  that  at  the  back  of  him,  there  to  be  slain 
by  the  future  irony,  there  was  a  little  sentiment. 

This  sense  of  strain,  this  slight  sense  of  opposition 
to  something  else  once  half  entertained,  appears  even 
in  his  exposition  of  his  Philosophy  of  Earth.  It  is  a 
little  harder  for  him  to  be  a  poet  of  pure  Nature  than  it 
was  for  Emerson.  There  is  less  of  Emerson's  spontan- 
eous though  episodical  emotion,  and  more  of  a  system. 
Occasionally,  no  doubt,  there  is  an  echo  of  Emerson's 
clarity,  as  when  speaking  of  the  lark  he  says  : — 

'  And  every  face  to  watch  him  raised, 
Puts  on  the  light  of  children  praised' : 

perhaps  also— 

1  The  song  seraphically  free 
Of  taint  of  personality.' l 

But  almost  invariably  there  is  a  curiosity  of  expression 


1  In  '  The  Woods  of  Westermain'  there  are  four  or  five  Emersonian 
crystallisations  : — 

'  You  of  any  well  that  springs 

May  unfold  the  heaven  of  things ' ; 
and 

'  Even  as  dewlight  off  the  rose 
In  the  mind  a  jewel  sows' ; 

and 

'  You  must  love  the  light  so  well 
That  no  darkness  will  seem  fell' ; 

and 

'  Change  is  on  the  wing  to  bud 
Rose  in  brain  from  rose  in  blood. 


230  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

or  a  compression  of  thought  beyond  Emerson's :  he 
has  an  insistence,  too,  that  is  different  from  Emerson's 
iteration.  It  is  partly  on  account  of  this  thoroughness 
that  he  has  caught  the  ear  of  the  modern  world. 

Meredith's  philosophy  of  Earth  is,  in  short,  a  counsel 
to  man  to  ascertain  and  reverence  the  laws  of  his  cer- 
tain home.  The  first  demand  is  trust.  Earth  is  no 
Mother,  but  dead  matter,  and  ironical,  to  those  who 
spend  their  lives  beating  on  a  fast-shut  door.  Her 
flowers  and  her  meaning  are  for  confidence  : — 

*  Well  knows  she  the  cry  of  unfaith. 
If  we  strain  to  the  farther  shore, 
We  are  catching  at  comfort  near. 
Assurances,  symbols,  saws, 
Revelations  in  Legends,  light 
To  eyes  rolling  darkness,  these 
Desired  of  the  flesh  in  affright, 
For  the  which  it  will  swear  to  adore, 
She  yields  not  for  prayers  at  her  knees  ; 
The  woolly  beast  bleating  will  shear.' 

Not  by  clamouring  to  know  of  their  personal  destiny 
will  men  help  themselves,  but  by  living  the  life  of  the 
spirit  for  its  own  satisfying  sake.     So  in  the  poem  :— 
(  Earth  whispers  :  "they  scarce  have  the  thirst, 

Except  to  unriddle  a  rune  ; 

And  I  spin  none  ;  only  show, 

Would  humanity  soar  from  its  worst, 

Winged  above  darkness  and  dole, 

How  flesh  unto  spirit  must  grow. 

Spirit  raves  not  for  a  goal." ' l 


1  (  We  must  pick  no  locks,'  says  Emerson,  in  '  The  Over  Soul.' 
'We  must  check  this  low  curiosity' : — low,  because  it  meanly  con- 
cerns ourselves. 

The  whole  of  ' A  Faith  on  Trial '  is  reminiscent  of  Emerson,  both 
of  his  Essays  and  Poems.  We  have  even  'The  Great  Over-Reason' 
and  the  reappearance  of  the  Titmouse  as  a  wild  cherry  tree  in  blos- 
som. The  better  and  more  modern  a  thinker  is,  the  more  he  is 
indebted  to  Emerson. 


MEREDITH  -231 

We  must  address  ourselves  to  our  surrounding  of 
Earth  like  the  rest  of  her  children — plants  and  trees, 
who  accept  the  necessary  conditions  without  anxiety  :— 

'  They  question  not,  nor  ask 
The  silent  to  give  sound, 
The  hidden  to  unmask, 
The  distant  to  draw  near/ 

And  if  we  confine  our  attention  to  Earth,  we  shall  find 
we  can  learn  much  from  her  who  knows  not  hope  or 
fear,  and  who  is  perpetually  selecting  the  fit  and 
rejecting  the  foul.  Nor  is  it  hard  for  us  to  do  this,  to 
become  pupils  of  Earth,  for,  however  careless  of  our 
existence  the  Great  Mother  may  be,  there  is  in  fact  a 
sympathetic  emotion  aroused  in  us  by  the  unplumbed 
world  around.  Even  the  distant  stars  are  expressions 
of  the  same  energy  by  which  we  live  : — 

*  We,  specks  of  dust  upon  a  mound  of  mould, 
We,  who  reflect  those  rays,  though  low  our  place, 

To  them  are  lastingly  allied. 
So  may  we  read,  and  little  find  them  cold/ 

No  doubt,  Earth  may  not  intend  to  teach  anything. 
What  we  receive  may  be  only  what  we  give,  but  we 
receive  it  back  with  a  new  emphasis.  At  any  rate,  a 
great  part  of  our  lives  is  occupied  with  the  recognition 
of  the  processes  of  the  universe,  of  its  laws.  We  can 
learn  from  them,  and  we  can  listen  to  what,  through 
them,  Earth  teaches.  But  what  does  she  teach  ?  She 
teaches  a  truce  to  tears,  and  a  short  and  swift  way  with 
sheep.  She  teaches  conflict,  she  teaches  fitness,  she 
teaches  beauty  and  health  : — 

*  The  bird  of  felicity  loud, 
Spun  high,  and  a  South  wind  blew.' 

The   first   and   chief  lesson,   then,   is   the  lesson  of 


232  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

acceptance,  of  conformity  to  environment.  We  must 
accept  struggle  as  well  as  balm,  the  law  of  pureness, 
Earth's  healthful  lusts. 

The  doctrine  of  sacrifice  is  attractive,  and  rightly 
attractive,  to  the  world,  because  of  its  warfare  with  the 
chief  worldly  diseases,  love  of  self  and  self-pity.  But 
the  gospel  Meredith  preaches  is  not  a  gospel  of  sacri- 
fice, for,  though 

'  To  sacrifice  Earth  prompts  her  best,' 

the  chief  law  of  life  is  that  we  should  fulfil  the  laws 
of  Earth  :— 

'  Slain 
Is  no  force  in  Westermain.' 

4  Put  his  fangs  to  uses,'  says  Meredith  of  the  self- 
dragon  that  haunts  the  human  wood. 

Nor  is  this  gospel  as  easy  as  at  first  it  looks.  To 
accept  all  the  laws  of  Earth  is  not  easy.  We  are  to 
accept  the  laws  both  of  human  instinct  and  of  Nature, 
to  accept  them  without  repining,  even  the  law  of 
Change  without  repining. 

*  Change  and  decay  in  all  around  I  see,' 
sings  the  hymn-writer  tenderly  and  repiningly. 
'  Rosiest  rosy  wanes  to  crone,' 

says  Meredith  with  an  absurd  and  happy  irony,  for  the 
law  of  change  is  no  tearful  but  a  joyful  law  to  him. 
His  own  name  for  it  is  the  'fire  of  renewal.'  This 
burning  is  what  Earth  is  doing  ;  it  is  her  life,  the 
activity  which  justifies  her  being.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  an  end  or  stop  in  Earth's  processes.  The 


MEREDITH  233 

leaf  falls  from  the  tree  and  makes  the  soil  for  the  next 
year  ;  the  buried  tree  turns  to  coal,  the  thrush 

'  He  sings  me,  out  of  Winter's  throat, 
The  young  time  with  the  life  ahead.' 

And  this  rushing  metamorphosis  which  Emerson 
celebrated  is  evidenced  not  merely  by  everything  in 
external  nature.  Primitive  man,  the  one  of  us  nearest 
to  Earth,  and  primitive  beliefs,  are  equally  emphatic 
for  unendingness.  Primitive  man  never  dreams  even 
of  his  own  death  as  an  end.1  Meredith  does  not 
mean  by  this  to  assure  us  that  when  we  die  we  shall 
enter  the  happy  hunting  grounds.  He  means  merely 
that  in  speaking  of  death  as  we  do  we  deceive  ourselves 
with  words.2  Literally  speaking  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  death.  What  we  call  death  is  merely  part  of  a 
process,  part  of  the  life-process.  Something  in  the 
plan  of  Earth  happens  when  we  die,  just  as  something 
happens  in  the  plan  of  Earth  when  a  leaf  dies.  Death 
is  part  of  a  process  which  has  a  meaning,  and  this 
meaning,  though  we  can  only  imperfectly  decipher  it, 
quite  evidently  exists  :  it  exists  independently  of  the 
effect  upon  ourselves  of  that  part  of  the  process  which 
we  call  our  death.  But  our  death  is  the  change  which 
most  affects  us  ;  and  it  is  the  one  change  in  the  course 
of  Earth's  process  about  which  we  know  no  more  than 
.that  it  is  a  change.  Yes,  but  it  is  just  this  mystery 
surrounding  this  change  which,  taken  together  with 
suffering,  makes  the  life  of  man  the  full  drama  it  is  ; 


1  See  quotation  on  page  214. 

2  *  Death  is  the  word  of  a  bovine  day  '  says  Meredith  in  his  quaint 


^manner,  retorting  upon  the  text. 


234  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

a  tragedy  with  a  meaning  in  the  process  of  things,  but 
a  meaning  which  from  us  Earth  hides.1 

Of  this  process,  then,  our  lives  are  a  portion.  And 
consequently  a  life  lived  congruently  with  Earth  will 
be  a  life  not  lived  with  a  view  to  the  end  of  a  part  of 
the  process,  but  in  sympathy  with  a  quick  whole  which 
never  ceases  quickening,  and  which,  even  in  what  we 
call  death,  lives  : — 

'Earth  knows  no  desolation. 
She  smells  regeneration 
In  the  moist  breath  of  decay.' 

The  law  to  which  we  have  to  assimilate  ourselves  is 
the  law  of  growth. 

1  For,  what  is  human  grief? 
And  what  do  men  desire  ? 
Teach  me  to  feel  myself  the  tree, 
And  not  the  withered  leaf. 
Fixed  am  I  and  await  the  dark  to-be.' 

Thus  does  Meredith,  proclaiming,  in  the  fine  phrase  of 
Professor  Elton,  a  hard-won  i  faith  in  the  known  life 
of  man,'2  counsel  us  to  attend  to  what  we  know,  to  find 
our  comfort  here,  and  not  to  seek  for  it  in  desire. 


1  'The  knowledge  that  we  traverse  the   whole  scale   of  being,' 
says  Emerson,  in   a  sentence  after   Meredith's   heart,    'from  the 
centre  to  the  poles  of  nature,  and  have  some  stake  in  every  possi- 
bility, lends  that  sublime  lustre  to  death,   which  philosophy  and 
religion  have  too  outwardly  and  literally  striven  to  express.' — Essays,, 
2nd  series,  '  Nature.' 

2  Modern    Studies,     '  Tennyson  :    a   Lecture.'      Professor  Elton 
has  been  speaking  especially  of  Tennyson's  social  attitude.      His' 
actual  words  are  :  '  The  literature  of  hope,  of  faith  in  the  known  life 
of  man,  and  of  a  hard-won  optimism,  has  veteran  and  trained  com- 
manders beside  whom  Tennyson  is  only  like  an  amateur  aristocrat. 


MEREDITH  235 

A  large  confidence  that,  in  a  different  sense  from 
Browning's,  '  all 's  right  with  the  world,'  replaces  indi- 
vidual longing.  Earth  in  those  processes  of  hers,  in 
those  parts  of  her  process  which  we  can  and  do  observe, 
does  not  disappoint  us.  Out  of  the  dead  day  she 
builds  her  sun-set,  and  out  of  a  seed  and  a  few  decayed 
leaves,  the  infinite  convolution  of  the  rose.1 

What  makes  the  substance  of  this  teaching  different 
from  the  substance  of  Emerson's  ?  There  are  several 
points  of  similarity,  but  its  whole  atmosphere  is  harder  ; 
it  relies  more  exclusively  upon  the  known  fact ;  it  is 
much  less  occupied  with  questions  as  to  the  ultimate 
nature  of  Reality,  and  there  is  a  deeper  insistence  on 
the  meaning  of  the  process,  taken  separate  from  man. 
In  the  recognition  of  this  there  is  even  an  insistent  joy. 
Emerson  reads  the  whole  Universe  in  terms  of  the 
Soul ;  Meredith  reads  it  in  terms  of  Earth.  And  though 
you  may  say  these  are  merely  different  names  for  the 


permitted  to  accompany  outlying  portions  of  a  campaign.  Scarred 
and  gaunt,  sometimes  harsh  of  style,  a  little  overwhelming  to  the 
men  of  intellectual  diplomacy  and  compromise,  unscared,  strong- 
headed,  they  stand,  with  most  of  their  work  ready  for  judgement, 
reaping  a  few  long-grudged  honours  for  which  they  cannot  care.  It 
would  take  long  to  draw  out  the  lines  of  connexion  between  minds 
so  divergent  as  those  which  created  the  poem  of  Brand,  the  epic 
story  of  La  Debacle,  and  The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel? 

1  The  metaphor  of  the  rose  is  a  favourite  one  with  Meredith.    He 
uses  it,  both  to  express  his  trust  in  Earth — 

'  Into  the  breast  that  gives  the  rose, 
Shall  I  with  shuddering  fall  ? ' 

and  to  justify  suffering — 

'  Sure  reward 

We  have  whom  knowledge  crowns  ; 
Who  see  in  mould  the  rose  unfold, 
The  soul  through  blood  and  tears.' 


236  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

same  thing,  there  is  a  great  difference  in  different 
names.  To  rename  the  All  is  to  see  it  under  a  new 
aspect.  Meredith  subjects  man  to  the  laws  of  things, 
whereas  Emerson  subjects  the  laws  of  things  to  the 
Universal  Soul  which  speaks  in  man.  Meredith's 
doctrine  of  conformity  to  environment  is  eminently 
sensible,  and  his  gospel  of  trust  in  the  Process  the  most 
basically  helpful  that  has  been  promulgated.  These 
doctrines  of  Nature  are  very  natural,  and  taken  together 
form  a  Reading  of  Earth  which  is  sound.  Yet  to  read 
Emerson  is  to  feel  that  Meredith's  doctrine  is  a  First 
Reading  of  Earth.  It  is  a  doctrine  to  which  Emerson's 
doctrine  gives  wings.  He  ought  to  have  written 
before  Emerson  instead  of  after  him. 

The  difference  is  that  one  is  a  philosophical,  the 
other  a  religious  teacher,  and  this  explains  how  Emer- 
son can  transmute  his  teaching,  on  occasion,  into 
poetry  of  a  wonderful  clarity,  while  Meredith  to  poeti- 
calise  his  matter  has  to  work  much  harder.  When 
Meredith  has  a  thought  we  may  call  religious  rather 
than  philosophical,  a  thought  of  morality  touched  with 
emotion,  he  also  is  successful.  There  is  his  pro- 
nouncement on  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice  given  in  '  The 
Garden  of  Epicurus ' : — 


'That  Garden  of  sedate  Philosophy 
Once  flourished,  fenced  from  passion  and  mishap, 
A  shining  spot  upon  a  shaggy  map  ; 
Where  mind  and  body,  in  fair  junction  free, 
Luted  their  joyful  concord  ;  like  the  tree 
From  root  to  flowering  twigs  a  flowing  sap. 
Clear  Wisdom  found  in  tended  Nature's  lap, 
Of  gentlemen  the  happy  nursery. 
That  Garden  would  on  light  supremest  verge, 
Were  the  long  drawing  of  an  equal  breath 


MEREDITH  237 

Healthful  for  Wisdom's  head,  her  heart,  her  aims. 
Our  world  which  for  its  Babels  wants  a  scourge, 
And  for  its  wilds  a  husbandman,  acclaims 
The  crucifix  that  came  of  Nazareth.' 


That  is  hard.  How  different  from  Arnold's  sonnet 
1  East  London '  which  approaches  the  same  topic 
from  a  different  point  of  feeling.  But  if  it  has  the 
hardness,  it  has  the  truth,  of  steel. 

Why  it  is  especially  difficult  for  Meredith  to  poeti- 
calise  his  matter  is  that  it  is  in  general  strictly  philo- 
sophical, exclusively  mental,  and  practically  bare  of 
emotion,  strictly  so-called. 

This,  no  doubt,  is  the  primary  difficulty  of  the 
intellectual  poet,  that  he  has  to  emotionalise  his 
material ;  that  he  has  to  feel  intellectual  matter 
emotionally.  But  in  his  Philosophy  of  Earth  Meredith 
experiences  this  difficulty  in  an  intensified  form.  The 
ratiocination  is  absolutely  continuous.  It  is  a  long 
process  to  which  the  attention  of  the  mind  has  to  be 
exclusively  given.  Often  all  that  Meredith  can  do 
is  to  translate.  There  are  thus  two  language  processes. 
To  give  an  example  of  poetry  where  there  is  only  one 
language  process,  every  one  is  familiar  with  the 
striking  passage  which  opens  Henry  7F.,  Part  n. 
Northumberland,  receiving  the  news  of  defeat  and  full 
of  foreboding  for  the  future,  imagines  and  defies  the 
worst : — 

*  Now  bind  my  brows  with  iron  ;  and  approach 
The  ragged'st  hour  that  time  and  spite  dare  bring,          . 
To  frown  upon  the  enrag'd  Northumberland  ! 
Let  heaven  kiss  earth  !     Now  let  not  nature's  hand 
Keep  the  wild  flood  confin'd  !  let  order  die  ! 
And  let  this  world  no  longer  be  a  stage, 
To  feed  contention  in  a  lingering  act ; 


238  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

But  let  one  spirit  of  the  first-born  Cain 
Reign  in  all  bosoms,  that,  each  heart  being  set 
On  bloody  courses,  the  rude  scene  may  end, 
And  darkness  be  the  burier  of  the  dead  !' 

When  Shakespeare  says  this  he  has  made  clear  to 
himself  his  sense  of  gathering  gloom  ;  that  is  to  say, 
Shakespeare's  feelings  and  thoughts,  as  a  general 
habit,  take  definite  form  as  they  are  voiced.  He  did 
not  know  what  he  was  going  to  say  till  he  said  it. 
There  is  one  language  process.  Poetry  is  Shake- 
speare's language,  and  his  thought  is  expressed  in  it. 
Till  he  so  expressed  it,  his  thought  was  inchoate  ;  it 
was  waiting  to  take  form  till  it  was  expressed,  expressed 
in  that  way.1 

But  Meredith  knows  exactly,  before  he  has  said  it 
in  verse,  what  he  wants  to  say.  Indeed  the  conception 
is  clearer,  because  more  immediate,  before  it  is  ex- 
pressed in  verse.  It  has  been  thought  out  in  words 
beforehand,  not  necessarily  in  words  written  down, 
but  a  long  course  of  abstract  thinking  cannot  be 
pursued  without  their  aid.  There  are  two  language 
processes.  The  thing  does  not  take  form  in  verse  ; 
it  takes  intellectual  form,  before  it  is  expressed  in 
verse.  What  happens  is  that  intellectual  matter,  on 
which  the  operations  of  the  intellect  are  concluded, 
is  written  over  in  a  state  of  enthusiasm,  an  enthusiasm 
that  if  never  simulated,  is  often  stimulated,  forced. 
You  can  hear  the  whirr  of  the  machine.  As  a  result 
we  do  not  get  precisely  poetry. 

On  occasion  he  brings  it  off  to  a  miracle.     He  is 


1  For  some  of  this  phraseology   I   am   conscious  of  a  debt  to 
Mr.  Bradley 's  Poetry  for  Poetry's  Sake. 


MEREDITH  239 

speaking  of  *  Youth  in  Memory,' and  how  in  memory 
the  facts  of  young  life  wane  dim  ;  while  feelings, 
impressions,  intuitions,  shafts  of  day  -  dreams  we 
thought  nothing  of  at  the  time,  now,  in  retrospect, 
seem  to  have  been  the  most  keenly  lived  : — 

'  Solidity  and  bulk  and  martial  brass, 
Once  tyrants  of  the  senses,  faintly  score 
A  mark  on  pebbled  sand  or  fluid  slime, 
While  present  in  the  spirit,  vital  there, 
Are  things  that  seemed  the  phantoms  of  their  time  ; 
Eternal  as  the  recurrent  cloud,  as  air 
Imperative,  refreshful  as  dawn-dew.' 

The  whole  *  Ode  to  the  Spirit  of  Earth  in  Autumn  '  is 
thus  successful.  But  generally  this  is  not  how  it  is 
brought  off.  Nor  is  his  success  brought  off  by  his 
power  of  imperishable  phrase,  which  is  chiefly  con- 
fined to  his  poems  touching  on  sex.  I  do  not  mean 
that  his  command  over  phraseology  is,  in  these  poems 
of  Earth,  not  brought  into  frequent  use.  Sometimes, 
very  rarely,  there  is  an  emotional  phrase  : — 

'  Look  now  where  Colour,  the  soul's  bridegroom,  makes 
The  house  of  heaven  splendid  for  the  bride ' ; 


or — 


1 1  stood  to  the  touch  of  a  key 
Turned  in  a  fast-shut  door.' 


More  often  it  is  a  huddled  image  that  strikes  and 
enchains  the  fancy,  of  which  the  prettiest  instance 
is  the  phrase  that  describes  the  children's  spatter, 
when  their  immediate  business,  buying  pennies,  school, 
dinner,  is  finished  or  about  to  begin.  Off, 

'  chatter,  hop,  skip,  they  were  sent, 
In  a  buzz  of  young  company  glee.3 

And  the  wildest  is  that  which  describes  the  awe  that 


240  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

damps  the  spirit  as  one  is  staring  at  the  star-strewn 

sky  : — 

'  Fronting  yon  shoreless,  sown  with  fiery  sails, 
It  is  our  ravenous  that  quails.' 1 

Yet  allowing  for  all  this,  we  have  not  explained  the 
effect  of  the  level  of  the  poems,  a  level  of  which  there 
is  a  great  deal,  and  to  which  their  general  poetical 
effect  is  plainly  due. 

What  we  may,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  call  their 
quality  of  poeticalness  is  chiefly  due  to  two  habits, 
both  of  which  are  in  constant  employment. 

The  first  is  the  high  strenuousness  of  the  argument. 
The  packed  thought,  the  compressed  language,  the 
way  in  which  Meredith  beats  and  thumps  on  our 
attention,  heat  the  brain.  It  is  intensity  that  makes 
'  A  Faith  on  Trial '  affect  us  like  poetry  ;  it  is  done 
on  tiptoe  and  so  affects  us  like  flight.  The  aloof 
comment  of  '  Earth  and  Man '  holds  the  spiritual 
imagination  with  a  chain.  That  series  of  cold  pro- 
nouncements upon  man's  destiny,  like  minute-guns 
announcing  the  funeral  of  his  egoism,  and  varied 
only  by  the  insistent  gibe,  is  truly  a  voice  of  the 
upper  air.  This  strain  upon  our  attention  we  can 
realise  perhaps  more  easily  in  a  descriptive  piece  such 
as  'The  Lark  Ascending/  a  feat  which  stupefies  our 
faculty  of  astonishment.  We  wonder  when  the  par- 
ticularising intellect  will  cease  describing,  miss  the 
target,  or  break  the  string.  To  read  it  to  oneself  is 
to  lose  one's  breath.  Such  intensity  alone  could  save 
five  hundred  lines  like  'The  Woods  of  Westermain,' 


1  These  two  instances  are  quoted  together  as  instances  of  noun- 
adjectives  and  adjective  nouns  by  Mr.  Trevelyan. 


MEREDITH  241 

a  long  description  and  a  long  allegory  combined, 
neither  of  which  for  an  instant  is  forgotten  in  the 
other,  and  where  the  Ethic  is  as  pungent  as  the 
smell  of  the  wood.  So  one  man  can  play  two  games 
of  chess  at  once,  and  another  hold  an  audience,  which 
is  not  really  soaring  with  him,  and  often  when  he 
is  not  really  soaring  at  all,  by  his  arresting  eye.  No 
other  poet  has  ever  displayed  the  same  power  of  con- 
centrated interest : — 

'White  of  heat,  awakes  to  flame. 
Beat,  beat !  white  of  heat.' 

The  other  habit,  which  is  of  general  service  to  the 
poetical  effect,  is  his  habit  of  obscurity,  his  habit  of 
leaving  a  thought  merely  suggested,  or  of  pitching 
so  many  thoughts  into  a  sentence  that  the  reader  is 
merely  conscious  that  many  are  there.  It  is  never 
nonsense.  You  can  decipher  the  meaning.  It  is 
really  amazing  how,  in  the  hands  of  a  fit  expositor, 
the  tangle  of  thought  and  image  unrolls  till  you  are 
presented  with  all  the  ideas  taken  separate  and  to 
be  seen.  But  to  decipher  the  poems  is  not  to  explain 
their  effect ;  the  effect  is  made  before  they  are  de- 
ciphered ;  in  fact  the  same  effect  continues  to  be  made 
after  the  deciphering.  The  keys  to  the  ciphers  are 
now  known,  but  who  can  read  slowly  enough  to  apply 
them? 

There  is,  of  course,  always  an  apparent  or  general 
meaning — I  do  not  say  in  every  line — but  there  is 
also  always  a  consciousness  that  something  in  the 
verses  is  being  missed.  One  has  not  time  nor  attentive 
faculty  to  absorb  their  full  content.  The  result  is  that 
one  seems  to  float  in  an  atmosphere  of  surrounding 

Q 


242  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

idea.  The  imagination  of  the  reader  is  set  up,  like  a 
cocked  ear  ;  it  begins  to  hear  voices,  itself  it  becomes 
active  and  begins  to  flow.  It  is  a  kind  of  writing  to 
which  Coleridge's  note-book  saying  that  '  poetry  gives 
most  pleasure  when  only  generally  and  not  perfectly 
understood  '  is  peculiarly  applicable.1 

Moreover,  the  subjects  with  which  Meredith  deals  in 
those  philosophical  poems  suffer  better  than  others  a 
treatment  of  this  kind.  Earth's  processes  we  may 
observe,  but  we  are  all  conscious  that,  despite  our 
keenest  observation  or  most  dogmatic  definition,  there 
is  a  secret  behind.  Man  perishes  as  the  grass  of  the 
field.  Let  it  be  so.  Nothing  could  be  plainer,  and 
now  we  understand  all  about  death  ;  and  yet  it  is 
mysterious  that  it  should  be  so.  Love,  memory,  com- 
prehension, if  these  are  the  play  of  chemic  forces,  there 
is  an  oddness  remaining  over.  Man's  soul  is  infinite 
.and  a  part  of  the  Infinite  Soul.  We  are  not  a  whit 
nearer  plain  English,  and  the  Sphinx  has  spoken. 
Meredith's  poems  dealing  with  the  problems  of  Uni- 
versal destiny  offer  a  similar  difficulty  of  comprehension. 
The  Delphic  priestess  is  oracular ;  and  so  this  poet,  by 
his  half  expression  or  tangled  expression,  suggests 
what  cannot  be  fully  expressed,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
can  be  realised  in  some  ways  better  when  suggested 
than  when  over-laid  with  the  statements  of  precision. 
He  produces  a  matter  which  is  really  like  that  tangle 
of  Universal  conflicting,  compensating,  and  even 
sympathetic  laws  of  which,  at  best,  as  a  whole,  we  have 


1  Emerson  has  the  sense  of  this.  'An  imaginative  book  renders 
us  much  more  service  at  first,  by  stimulating  us  through  its  tropes, 
than  afterward,  when  we  arrive  at  the  precise  sense  of  the  author.'— 
Essays,  2nd  series,  '  The  Poet.' 


MEREDITH  243 

an  imperfect  cognition.  In  these  poems  we  live  in  a 
world  of  ideas,  which  cross  and  recross,  in  an  oppression 
of  ideas,  in  the  same  oppression  which  we  ourselves 
inhabit  when  we  attempt  to  realise  Earth. 

Meredith's  matter  in  these  poems,  great  as  is  his 
poetical  faculty,  is  often  quite  beyond  it.  Often  he 
does  not  resolve  this  matter  into  poetry.  Often  he  trips 
over  his  thought,  gets  through  sometimes  by  a  series 
of  tumbles,  sometimes  altogether  fails  to  get  out  his 
idea.  But  this  very  struggle  to  express,  the  side-shafts 
of  parenthesis,  the  quick-flying  labouring  brain,  this 
difficulty  in  resolution,  suggest  the  atmosphere  of  the 
ideas  he  is  trying  to  resolve.  It  is  very  certain,  despite 
all  that  the  pedants  of  perspicuousness  may  say,  that 
we  ourselves  are  conscious  at  the  back  of  our  minds  of 
a  profundity,  of  a  sense  that,  try  as  we  like,  we  know 
more  than  we  can  tell. 

'  Was  never  voice  of  ours  could  say 
Our  inmost  in  the  sweetest  way.' 

This  we  may  take  for  granted  ;  but  it  is  idle  to  with- 
hold the  title  of  poetry  from  work  which  to  a  rare  degree 
yields  the  sense  of  its  subject,  and  indicates  our  depth. 
That  it  does  so,  largely  owing  to  its  imperfection,  is  to 
say,  of  course,  that  it  is  not  the  greatest  poetry,  but 
it  is  not  to  say  it  is  not  poetry.  That  is  poetry  which 
yields  a  poetical  effect. 


244  POETRY  AND  PROSE 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE 
INFINITE 

THE  course  of  Emerson's  thought  is  an  orderly  process. 
While  still  young,  and  living  in  the  old  manse  in  which 
Hawthorne  in  after  years  wrote  his  lingering  tales,  he 
wrote  the  Treatise  on  Nature,  fifty  pages  which  explain 
nearly  all  that  is  explicable  about  the  correspondence 
between  man  and  his  environment. 

He  opens  the  little  tract  by  sketching  roughly  *  that 
wonderful  congruity  which  exists  between  man  and  the 
world. ' 

'  Standing  on  the  bare  ground — my  head  bathed  by 
the  blithe  air,  and  uplifted  into  infinite  space, — all  mean 
egotism  vanishes.  I  become  a  transparent  eyeball  ;  I 
am  nothing  ;  I  see  all  ;  the  currents  of  the  Universal 
Being  circulate  through  me.  ...  In  the  wilderness, 
I  find  something  more  dear  and  connate  than  in  streets 
or  villages.  .  .  .  The  greatest  delight  which  the  fields 
and  woods  minister,  is  the  suggestion  of  an  occult  re- 
lation between  man  and  the  vegetable.  I  am  not  alone 
and  unacknowledged.  They  nod  to  me,  and  I  to  them. 
The  waving  of  the  boughs  in  the  storm,  is  new  to  me 
and  old.  It  takes  me  by  surprise,  and  yet  is  not  un- 
known. .  .  .  Yet  it  is  certain  that  the  power  to  produce 
this  delight  does  not  reside  in  nature,  but  in  man,  or 
in  a  harmony  of  both.' 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  245 

Thereafter  he  discusses  the  detail  of  this  harmony 
under  the  heads  of  Commodity,  Beauty,  Language, 
Discipline. 

Of  Commodity  he  has  necessarily  little  to  say.     On 

*  the  rich  conveniences '  Earth  affords  to  man  it  would 
be  easy  for  an   empty  writer  to  expand.     A  full  one  is 
short  on  the  obvious.     Man  is  able  to  make  use  of  every- 
thing in  Nature,  of  beasts,  fire,  water,  stones,  and  corn. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  speak  of  Beauty,  but  there  is 
the  fact  that  *  the  simple  perception  of  natural  forms  is  a 
delight,'  and  that  to  us  '  every  natural  action  is  grace- 
ful ' ;  not  only  so  ;  '  every  heroic  act  is  also  decent,  and 
causes  the  place  and  the  bystanders  to  shine.'  *  In 
private  places,  among  sordid  objects,  an  act  of  truth  or 
heroism  seems  at  once  to  draw  to  itself  the  sky  as  its 
temple,  the  sun  as  its  cradle.  Nature  stretches  out  her 
arms  to  embrace  man,  only  let  his  thoughts  be  of  equal 
greatness.'  Beauty  in  Nature  speaks  to  Beauty  in  him. 

4  No  reason  can  be  asked  or  given  why  the  soul  seeks 
beauty,'  but  Nature  both  ministers  to  man's  ardency  to 
realise  it  and  feeds  that  flame.  All  Art  is  founded  upon 
Nature  ; — '  the  beauty  of  nature  re-forms  itself  in  the 
mind,  and  not  for  barren  contemplation,  but  for  new 
creation. '  Art  is  often  spoken  of  in  contrast  with  Nature, 
but  the  difference  is  one  of  addition,  not  of  opposition. 

The  purpose  of  the  chapter  on  Language  is  to  show 
that  Nature  is  also  the  vehicle  of  man's  thought :  for 
not  only  are  words  '  signs  of  natural  facts/  but  '  every 
natural  fact  is  a  symbol  of  some  spiritual  fact.  Every 
appearance  in  nature  corresponds  to  some  state  of  the 
mind,  and  that  state  of  the  mind  can  only  be  described 
by  presenting  that  natural  appearance  as  its  picture.' 

*  It  is  easily  seen  that  there  is  nothing  lucky  or  capri- 


246  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

cious  in  these  analogies,  but  that  they  are  constant  and 
pervade  nature.'  *  Hence  good  writing  and  brilliant 
discourse  are  perpetual  allegories.  This  imagery  is 
spontaneous.  It  is  the  blending  of  experience  with  the 
present  action  of  the  mind.  It  is  proper  creation.  It 
is  the  working  of  the  Original  Cause  through  the 
instruments  he  has  already  made.' 

To  speak  in  the  same  way  of  Discipline,  '  Nature  is  a 
discipline  of  the  understanding  in  intellectual  truths. 
Our  dealing  with  sensible  objects  is  a  constant  exercise 
in  the  necessary  lessons  of  difference,  of  likeness,  of 
order,  of  being  and  seeming,  of  progressive  arrange- 
ment ;  of  ascent  from  particular  to  general ;  of  combina- 
tion to  one  end  of  manifold  forces ' ;  but  not  only  so  ; 
*  Sensible  objects  conform  to  the  premonitions  of  Reason 
and  reflect  the  conscience.  All  things  are  moral ;  and 
in  their  boundless  changes  have  an  unceasing  reference 
to  spiritual  nature.'  .  .  .  'Thus  the  use  of  commodity, 
regarded  by  itself,  is  mean  and  squalid.  But  it  is  to  the 
mind  an  education  in  the  doctrine  of  Use,  namely,  that 
a  thing  is  good  only  so  far  as  it  serves.'  'All  things 
with  which  we  deal,  preach  to  us.'  '  What  is  a  farm 
but  a  mute  gospel  ?  .  .  .  the  chaff  and  the  wheat,  weeds 
and  plants,  blight,  rain,  insects,  sun.'  Every  natural 
fact  is  a  symbol  of  some  moral  fact,  and  can  be  read  by 
a  moral  understanding. 

'  In  this  brave  lodging  wherein  man  is  harboured,  all 
his  faculties  find  appropriate  and  endless  exercise.'  In- 
deed Nature's  song  strikes  so  directly  on  our  ear,  is  so 
much  our  song,  that  a  doubt  is  suggested  whether 
Nature  has  any  other  object  than  this  reference  to  us, 
or  even  whether  the  whole  is  not  a  dream  of  the  per- 
cipient. Certain  it  is  that  Nature  as  read  by  us  is 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  247 

dependent  upon  our  reading.  The  report  of  the  senses 
depends  upon  the  state  of  the  senses.  Change  the 
point  of  view  and  the  scene  is  changed.  All  that  is 
observed  undergoes  a  transmutation  in  human  thought, 
in  the  unfixing  and  refixing  processes  of  poetry,  and  in 
the  pervading  and  dissolving  thought  of  the  philo- 
sopher.1 l  Intellectual  science  has  been  observed  to 
beget  invariably  a  doubt  of  the  existence  of  matter/ 
'  Whilst  we  behold  unveiled  the  nature  of  Justice  and 
Truth,  we  learn  the  difference  between  the  absolute  and 
the  conditional  or  relative.  We  apprehend  the  absolute. 
As  it  were,  for  the  first  time,  we  exist.  We  become  im- 
mortal, for  we  learn  that  time  and  space  are  relations 
of  matter  ;  that,  with  a  perception  of  truth,  or  a  virtuous 
will,  they  have  no  affinity.'  .  .  .  *  It  appears'  then  'that 
motion,  poetry,  physical  and  intellectual  science,  and 
religion,  all  tend  to  affect  our  convictions  of  the  reality 
of  the  external  world.' 

There  is  then  nothing  outside  the  individual  ?  By  no 
means :  that  is  an  absolute  idealism  which  is  not 
Emerson's.  We  may  regard  nature  '  as  phenomena  not  as 
substance,'  and  yet  '  acquiesce  entirely  in  the  permanence 
of  natural  laws,'  in  the  existence  of  other  percipient 
minds,  in  the  reality  of  an  Existence  behind  phenomena 
and  supporting  them.  *  Behind  nature,  throughout 
nature,  spirit  is  present ;  one  and  not  compound,  it 
does  not  act  upon  us  from  without,  that  is,  in  space  and 

1  '  Is  not  the  charm  of  one  of  Plato's  or  Aristotle's  definitions, 
strictly  like  that  of  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles?  It  is,  in  both  cases, 
that  a  spiritual  life  has  been  imparted  to  nature  ;  that  the  solid  seem- 
ing block  of  matter  has  been  pervaded  and  dissolved  by  a  thought ; 
that  this  feeble  human  being  has  penetrated  the  vast  masses  of  nature 
with  an  informing  soul,  and  recognised  itself  in  their  harmony,  that 
is,  seized  their  law.' — Treatise  on  Nature.  '  Idealism.' 


248  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

time,  but  spiritually,  or  through  ourselves  ;  therefore, 
that  spirit,  that  is,  the  Supreme  Being,  does  not  build 
up  nature  around  us,  but  puts  it  forth  through  us,  as 
the  life  of  the  tree  puts  forth  new  branches  and  leaves 
through  the  pores  of  the  old.' 

It  will  be  seen  that  Emerson,  by  a  process  of  detail 
and  founding  on  observation,  reaches  and  answers  in 
the  way  of  Philosophical  Idealism  the  basic  question 
of  metaphysics.  By  what  means  does  the  Ego  obtain 
a  knowledge  of  the  Non-Ego  ?  Obviously  and  easily, 
replies  Idealism,  if  Ego  and  Non-Ego  are  of  similar 
and  correspondent  nature.  Obviously  and  easily,  re- 
plies Dualism,  accepting  both  spirit  and  matter,  if  it  is 
so  ordained.  But  this  is  to  invent  a  '  Deus  ex  machina ' 
to  invent  a  bridge.1  A  valid  Theism  arrives  at  the  con- 
ception of  Deity,  a  Mind  intelligible  to  mind,  through 
finding  in  the  Non-Ego  a  nature  similar  to  the  Ego. 
It  does  not  presuppose  the  existence,  much  less  the 
operations  of  this  Mind.  There  is  no  question,  if  the 
answer  is  supplied. 

Emerson  was  in  no  danger  of  surrendering  his  whole 
philosophy,  a  considering  which  makes  for  results,  to 
conclusions  ready  made.  '  Build  your  own  world,'  he 
says  decisively.  '  As  fast  as  you  conform  your  life 
to  the  pure  idea  in  your  mind,  that  will  unfold  its  great 
proportions.  A  correspondent  revolution  in  things  will 
attend  the  influx  of  the  spirit.' 

This  correspondent  revolution  is  seen  throughout  the 


1  Materialism  too  is  a  theory  of  the  Universe  that  is  free  from  the 
weakness  of  Dualism.  Its  root  defect  is  different,  namely  that  it 
confounds  Appearance  and  Reality.  *  Idealism,'  says  Emerson  in 
his  terse  way, '  is  a  hypothesis  to  account  for  nature  by  other  principles 
than  those  of  carpentry  and  chemistry.' 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  249 

whole  course  of  Emerson's  thought.  Man  understands 
the  Universe  because  he  is  of  nature  akin  to  it.  But 
the  Universe  is  infinite.  The  Universe  is  understood 
by  man  because  it  is  of  similar  nature  to  himself.  But 
man  is  a  being  capable  of  thinking  beyond  the  finite. 
The  argument  beats  in  with  equal  force  from  both  sides. 
The  Universe  is  infinite  because  man  is  not  finite. 
Man  is  not  finite  because  the  Universe  is  infinite. 
There  at  once  appear  the  doctrines  of  an  embracing 
Infinity  and  of  the  infinity  of  the  private  man. 

The  All  is  the  Universal  Soul,  the  life  of  which  is 
spread  abroad  not  only  as  a  Unity,  but  separately  and 
divisibly  in  its  particular  parts.  The  Whole  embraces 
the  one,  and  the  one  reflects  the  Whole. 

Every  quality  of  the  Universal,  therefore,  belongs  of 
nature  to  the  particular,  and  though,  of  course,  on 
account  of  the  tiny  scale,  never  seen  perfect  there, 
capable  in  a  less  or  lesser  degree  of  Universality. 
Thus,  if  we  conceive  of  the  Universal  as  a  vast  circle, 
the  most  perfect  unit  will  be  so  much  of  the  circumfer- 
ence as  exhibits  roundness  ;  an  imperfect  part  will  be 
one  so  small  that  it  appears  straight ;  a  mere  point 
without  extension  will  represent  Peter  Bell. 

Emerson's  doctrine  contains  both  a  definition  and  an 
Ethic.  Man  is  infinite  ;  that  is  the  fact  of  his  being. 
He  is  a  portion  of  the  infinite  imprisoned  in  the  finite, 
but  it  is  his  duty  to  spread  his  wings  :  he  ought  to  think 
infinitely.  This  doctrine  gives,  not  to  every  man,  but 
to  the  capacity  of  man,  the  infinity  of  the  Infinite  Nature. 

Thus,  to  take  Emerson's  hardest  saying :  <  The 
moment  the  doctrine  of  immortality  is  separately 
taught,  man  is  already  fallen.'  Our  anxiety  to  know 
.about  our  future  is  an  anxiety  that  is  truly  finite,  a 


250  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

curiosity  that  is  Mow.'  Each  individual  soul  is  a  part 
of  the  Universal  Soul,  and  its  true  life  is  in  the  attri- 
butes of  the  Universal  Soul  ;  truth,  justice,  love,  with 
which  'the  idea  of  immutableness  is  essentially 
associated.'  '  In  the  flowing  of  love,  in  the  adoration 
of  humility,  there  is  no  question  of  continuance.  No 
inspired  man  ever  asks  this  question,  or  condescends  to 
these  evidences.  For  the  soul  is  true  to  itself,  and  the 
man  in  whom  it  is  shed  abroad  cannot  wander  from  the 
present,  which  is  infinite,  to  a  future  which  would  be 
finite.'  By  finite  Emerson  does  not  mean,  here,  limited 
by  definition,  though  he  may  also  be  thinking  of  that ; 
he  means  limited  by  being  confined  to  the  particular. 
The  individual  ceases  living  in  the  life  of  the  Whole 
and  becomes  concerned  for  his  own  duration.  He  has 
made  'a  confession  of  sin.' 

Similarly  in  all  departments  of  thought,  Religion, 
Ethics,  Art,  Scholarship,  even  Manners,  we  must  think 
Universally  ;  we  must  do  so  because  in  part  we  cannot 
help  doing  so,  and  in  part  because  we  ought  to  do  so. 

Appropriately  Emerson  opens  his  '  Address  to  the 
Senior  Class  in  Divinity  College,  Cambridge,'  with  a 
reference  to  the  Universe.  *  In  this  refulgent  summer, 
it  has  been  a  luxury  to  draw  the  breath  of  life.  The 
grass  grows,  the  buds  burst,  the  meadow  is  spotted 
with  fire  and  gold  in  the  tint  of  flowers,'  and  speaking, 
three  years  later,  of  the  '  Method  of  Nature,'  he  asks, 
'  Who  could  ever  analyse  it?  That  rushing  stream  will 
not  stop  to  be  observed.  We  can  never  surprise  nature 
in  a  corner  ;  never  find  the  end  of  a  thread  ;  never 
tell  where  to  set  the  first  stone.  The  bird  hastens  to  lay 
her  egg;  the  egg  hastens  to  be  a  bird.'  Of  this  Protean 
life  we  necessarily  partake.  '  You  cannot  bathe  twice 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  251 

in  the  same  river,  said  Heraclitus  ;  and  I  add,  a  man 
never  sees  the  same  object  twice — with  his  own  enlarge- 
ment the  object  acquires  new  aspects.'  The  music  of 
the -spheres  is  the  song  of  revolving.  Loud  and  in- 
sistent as  the  gyroscopic  hum,  it  fills  the  ears  of  the 
understanding.  Man's  soul  quickens  in  sympathy  ; 
he  is  caught  up  and  whirled  forward  in  the  Universal 
race.  He  could  not  stop  if  he  would,  and  for  him 
finality  is  'a  discredited  word.'  Everything  is  in 
motion,  everything  that  lives,  the  Spirit  that  gives  life, 
and  so  also  our  ideas  of  this  Spirit.  Man  is  always 
writing  new  Bibles,  but  *  the  secret  of  heaven  is  kept 
from  Age  to  Age.'  No  religion,  on  account  of  the 
nature  of  man,  can  be  final,  for  no  sooner  is  it  expressed 
than  the  soul  must  begin  to  circle  beyond  it,  or  disprove 
its  own  essence  by  sinking  into  finitude. 

To  man,  distressed  by  his  incapacity  to  'rest  satisfied 
with  explanations,'  even  explanations  of  what  he  most 
cherishes,  this  doctrine  of  Emerson's  is  a  cooling 
stream.  Man's  difficulties  arise  not  because  he  is  sunk 
in  material  flesh  ;  they  arise  because  he  already  pos- 
sesses that  of  which  dogma  chiefly  seeks  to  prove  his 
possession.  Were  man  finite  he  would  be  easily 
satisfied  with  any  chart  of  infinity.  Being  infinite  he 
is  satisfied  with  none. 

This  belief  that  we  destroy  what  we  define,  and  that 
there  is  always  something  in  the  defined  that  escapes 
us,  and  therefore  always  something  limiting  in  defini- 
tion, holds  equally  in  the  sphere  of  morals. 

First,  in  the  merely  wide  and  common  sense,  on 
account  of  the  necessary  width  of  the  moral  experience. 
It  is  not  every  one  who  exercises  freely  his  religious 
faculties  ;  he  may  take  refuge  in  indifferentism,  or  he 


252  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

may  leave,  in  the  phrase  of  the  world,  the  matter  with 
the  priest.  But  every  one  must  be  a  moral  being  ;  he 
must  form  ideas  of  the  permissible  if  they  are  only 
immoral  ideas  ;  he  must  be  offended  with  some  one's 
conduct  to  him,  or  offend  some  one  with  his  conduct. 
He  must  praise  and  he  must  blame  ;  he  must  be 
acquainted  both  with  satisfaction  and  remorse.  '  We 
side  with  the  hero,  as  we  read  or  paint,  against  the 
coward  and  the  robber;  but  we  have  been  ourselves  that 
coward  and  robber,  and  shall  be  again,  not  in  the  low 
circumstance,  but  in  comparison  with  the  grandeurs 
possible  to  the  soul.'1  When,  therefore,  we  shut  off 
the  robber  from  consideration  and  consign  him  to  the 
criminal  class,  as  who  should  say,  '  This  is  a  wolf,'  we 
are  conscious  of  a  meanness,  as  if  we  had  left  some- 
thing unsaid.  And  this  width  of  experience  gives  a 
universality  of  moral  outlook,  though  not  of  moral 
judgment,  even  to  the  lowest  intelligence.  If  the  crime 
is  not  against  himself,  there  is  no  mind  so  limited  as 
to  be  without  understanding  of  the  freedom  taken  with 
the  law.  '  We  permit  all  things  to  ourselves,  and  that 
which  we  call  sin  in  others,  is  experiment  for  us.  It  is 
an  instance  of  our  faith  in  ourselves,  that  men  never 
speak  of  crime  as  lightly  as  they  think  ;  or,  every 
man  thinks  a  latitude  safe  for  himself,  which  is  nowise 
to  be  indulged  to  another.2  The  act  looks  very  differ- 


1  '  Spiritual  Laws,' Essays,  ist  series. 

2  Was  it  some  perception  of  this  that  induced  folk-lore  to  find 
its  fond    pleasure   in   making   the    bad    heroine    appoint   her  own 
punishment  ?     What  should  be  done  to  a  stepmother  who  has  sold 
her  stepchild  to  a  witch  ?     And  the  stepmother  answers  with  un- 
failing moral  assurance  :  '  She  should  be  put  into  a  cask  studded 
with  nails,  and  rolled  into  the  sea.' 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  253 

ently  on  the  inside,  and  on  the  outside  ;  in  its  quality, 
and  in  its  consequences.  .  .  .  Especially  the  crimes  that 
spring  from  love,  seem  right  and  fair  from  the  actor's 
point  of  view,  but,  when  acted,  are  found  destructive  of 
society.  No  man  at  last  believes  that  he  can  be  lost, 
nor  that  the  crime  in  him  is  as  black  as  in  the  felon. 
Because  the  intellect  qualifies  in  our  own  case  the 
moral  judgments.' l 

But  there  is  a  higher  doctrine,  the  doctrine,  not  of 
the  width  of  moral  outlook,  but  of  the  infinity  of  moral 
idea.  Even  when  we  are  on  the  sweetest  ground,  and 
speaking  of  virtue,  we  must  not  linger  too  long.  l  Truth 
is  our  element  of  life,  yet  if  a  man  fasten  his  attention 
on  a  single  aspect  of  truth,  and  apply  himself  to  that 
alone  for  a  long  time,  the  truth  becomes  distorted  and 
not  itself,  but  falsehood.'2 

'  This  is  the  law  of  moral  and  of  mental  gain.  The 
simple  rise  as  by  specific  levity,  not  into  a  particular 
virtue,  but  into  the  region  of  all  the  virtues.  They  are 
in  the  spirit  which  contains  them  all.  The  soul  requires 
purity,  but  purity  is  not  it  ;  requires  justice,  but  justice 
is  not  that ;  requires  beneficence,  but  is  somewhat 
better ;  so  that  there  is  a  kind  of  descent  and  accom- 
modation felt  when  we  leave  speaking  of  moral  nature, 
to  urge  a  virtue  which  it  enjoins.'3  As  I  read  this  I 
seem  to  hear  my  own  soul  speaking,  and  that  is  ex- 
pressed which  I  have  always  felt.  We  see  now  why 
books  inculcating  a  virtue  have  an  oppressive  effect, 
why  The  Heart  of  Midlothian  offends  us  morally. 
There  is  a  flowing  in  the  moral  sentiment  which 


1  {  Experience,'  Essays,  2nd  series. 

2  *  Intellect,'  Essays,  ist  series. 

3  '  The  Over-Soul,'  Essays,  ist  series. 


254  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

embraces  all  morality,  and  cannot  attend  to  one  thing 
at  a  time.  '  For  other  things,  I  make  poetry  of  them  ; 
but  the  moral  sentiment  makes  poetry  of  me.'1 

Emerson  does  not,  like  a  school-book,  follow  his 
doctrine  with  instances.  He  sets  himself  no  tasks.  He 
does  not  ask  how  the  Doctrine  of  the  Infinite  affects 
specifically  Art,  the  Drama,  Poetry,  Education.2  He 
has  no  chapters  on  Turner's  pictures  viewed  from  this 
aspect.  No,  but  his  thought  has  always  this  colour  ;  it 
is  the  river  on  which  he  sails,  and  a  hundred  surprising 
sayings  attest  the  purity  and  strength  of  the  stream. 
Of  Beauty,  he  has  this  to  tell  us  :  *  Nothing  interests 
us  which  is  stark  or  bounded,  but  only  what  streams 
with  life,  what  is  in  act  or  endeavour  to  reach  some- 
what beyond.  .  .  .  Beauty  is  the  moment  of  transition, 
as  if  the  form  were  just  ready  to  flow  into  other 
forms  '  ; 3  and  of  the  beloved  :  '  His  friends  find  in  her 
a  likeness  to  her  mother,  or  her  sisters,  or  to  persons 
not  of  her  blood.  The  lover  sees  no  resemblance 
except  to  summer  evenings  and  diamond  mornings,  to 
rainbows  and  the  song  of  birds.'4  In  his  essay  on 
'  Manners,' what  gives  him  most  pleasure  is  what  Hafiz 
said  of  his  Persian  Lilla  :  '  She  was  an  elemental  force, 


1  Representative  Men,  *  Swedenborg.' 

2  But  of  course  it  does  apply  to  Education.      '  You  send   your 
boy  to  the  schoolmaster,  but  'tis  the  schoolboys  who  educate  him.' 
— Conduct  of  Life,  *  Culture.'     '  I  recall,'  says  Mr.  Moncure  Con  way, 
*  the    vigorous    way    in    which  Emerson,  warning  parents  against 
what  he  quaintly  called  "  disobedience  to  children  "  said  in  a  lecture, 
"  Get  off  that  child  !    You  are  trying  to  make  that  man  another  you. 
One   is   enough."'     And  in  Representative  Men — 'Uses    of  Great 
Men' — Emerson  speaks  of  a  world  'where  children  seem  so  much 
at  the  mercy  of  their  foolish  parents,  and  where   almost   all  men 
are  too  social  and  interfering.' 

3  Conduct  of  Life, '  Beauty.'  4  *  Love,'  Essays,  jst  series. 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  255 

and  astonished  me  by  her  amount  of  life.'1  *  How 
often  must  we  learn  this  lesson  ?  Men  cease  to  interest 
us  when  we  find  their  limitations.'2  'We  honour 
the  rich,  because  they  have  externally  the  freedom, 
power,  and  grace  which  we  feel  to  be  proper  to  man, 
proper  to  us.'  3  It  is  the  same  when  we  abase  ourselves 
to  exalt  ourselves  by  scraping  before  a  throne.  Some- 
thing of  this  can  be  seen  in  the  old  servants  of  families, 
and  it  is  the  poetry  of  the  English  which  makes  them  so 
free  with  titles  of  respect.  *  All  goes  to  show  that  the 
soul  in  man  is  not  an  organ,  but  animates  and  exer- 
cises all  the  organs  ;  is  not  a  function,  like  the  power 
of  memory,  of  calculation,  of  comparison,  but  uses 
these  as  hands  and  feet ;  is  not  a  faculty,  but  a  light  ; 
is  not  the  intellect  or  the  will,  but  the  master  of  the 
intellect  and  the  will  ;  is  the  background  of  our  being, 
in  which  they  lie — an  immensity  not  possessed  and  that 
cannot  be  possessed.  From  within  or  from  behind, 
a  light  shines  through  us  upon  things,  and  makes  us 
aware  that  we  are  nothing,  but  the  light  is  all.'  .  .  . 
1  We  lie  open  on  one  side  to  the  deeps  of  spiritual 
nature,  to  the  attributes  of  God,'  and  *  the  sovereignty 
of  this  nature  whereof  we  speak  is  made  known  by  its 
independency  of  those  limitations  which  circumscribe 
us  on  every  hand.'  4 

In  a  singularly  beautiful  passage  Emerson  speaks  of 
the  eternal  distance  :  '  There  is  in  woods  and  waters 
a  certain  enticement  and  flattery,  together  with  a  failure 
to  yield  a  present  satisfaction.  This  disappointment  is 


'  Manners,'  Essays,  2nd  series. 

2  '  Circles,'  Essays,  ist  series. 

3  '  History,'  Essays,  ist  series. 

4  '  The  Over- Soul,'  Essays,  ist  series. 


256  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

felt  in  every  landscape.  I  have  seen  the  softness  and 
beauty  of  the  summer-clouds  floating  feathery  over- 
head, enjoying,  as  it  seemed,  their  height  and  privilege 
of  motion,  whilst  yet  they  appeared  not  so  much  the 
drapery  of  this  place  and  hour,  as  forelooking  to  some 
pavilions  and  gardens  of  festivity  beyond.  It  is  an  odd 
jealousy  :  but  the  poet  finds  himself  not  near  enough  to 
his  object.  The  pine-tree,  the  river,  the  bank  of  flowers 
before  him,  does  not  seem  to  be  nature.  Nature  is 
still  elsewhere.  This  or  this  is  but  outskirt  and  far-off 
reflection  and  echo  of  the  triumph  that  has  passed  by, 
and  is  now  at  its  glancing  splendour  and  heyday, 
perchance  in  the  neighbouring  fields,  or,  if  you 
stand  in  the  field,  then  in  the  adjacent  woods.  The 
present  object  shall  give  you  this  sense  of  stillness  that 
follows  a  pageant  which  has  just  gone  by.  What 
splendid  distance,  what  recesses  of  ineffable  pomp  and 
loveliness  in  the  sunset !  But  who  can  go  where  they 
are,  or  lay  his  hand  or  plant  his  foot  thereon?  Off  they 
fall  from  the  round  world  for  ever  and  ever.  It  is  the 
same  among  the  men  and  women,  as  among  the  silent 
trees  ;  always  a  referred  existence,  an  absence,  never 
a  presence  and  satisfaction.'1 

'  A  lady,  with  whom  I  was  riding  in  the  forest,  said 
to  me,  that  the  woods  seemed  to  her  to  wait,  as  if  the 
genii  who  inhabit  them  suspended  their  deeds  until  the 
wayfarer  has  passed  onward  :  a  thought  which  poetry 
has  celebrated  in  the  dance  of  the  fairies,  which  breaks 
off  on  the  approach  of  human  feet.' 2 

With  this,  attitude  it  was  certain  that  Emerson,  in 


1  *  Nature,'  Essays,  2nd  series. 

2  '  History,'  Essays,  ist  series. 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  257 

speaking  of  Poetry,  would  seize  upon  Bacon's  descrip- 
tion ;  a  description  that  ascribes  its  charm  to  the  fact 
that  in  it  we  find  the  infinite  side  of  man's  nature  tran- 
scending" his  finite  circumstances.1 

*  The  power  or  music,  the  power  of  poetry  to  unfix, 
and,  as  it  were,  clap  wings  to  solid  nature,  interprets 
the  riddle  of  Orpheus.'2 

'  A  boy  hears  a  military  band  play  on  the  field  at 
night,  and  he  has  kings  and  queens,  and  famous 
chivalry  palpably  before  him.  He  hears  the  echoes  of 
a  horn  in  a  hill-country  .  .  .  which  converts  the  moun- 
tains into  an  .^Eolian  harp,  and  this  supernatural 
tiralira  restores  to  him  the  Dorian  mythology,  Apollo, 
Diana,  and  all  divine  hunters  and  huntresses.'3 

Again,  '  All  the  fictions  of  the  Middle  Age  explain 
themselves  as  a  masked  or  frolic  expression  of  that 
which  in  grave  earnest  the  mind  of  that  period  toiled 
to  achieve.  Magic,  and  all  that  is  ascribed  to  it,  is  a 
deep  presentiment  of  the  powers  of  science.  The  shoes 
of  swiftness,  the  sword  of  sharpness,  the  power  of  sub- 
duing the  elements,  of  using  the  secret  virtues  of 
minerals,  of  understanding  the  voices  of  birds,  are  the 
obscure  efforts  of  the  mind  in  a  right  direction.  The 
preternatural  prowess  of  the  hero,  the  gift  of  perpetual 
youth,  and  the  like,  are  alike  the  endeavour  of  the 
human  spirit  "to  bend  the  shows  of  things  to  the 
desires  of  the  mind."  4 

*  The  poets  are  thus  liberating  gods.  The  ancient 
British  bards  had  for  the  title  of  their  order,  "  Those 


1  See  pages  4  and  5  of  this  volume  ;  *  Poetry  :  a  Note.' 

2  '  History,'  Essays,  1st  series.  3  *  Nature,'  Essays,  2nd  series. 
4  '  History,'  Essays,  ist  series. 

R 


258  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

who  are  free  throughout  the  world."  They  are 
free,  and  they  make  free.'1  They  make  free  because 
they  transfer  things  from  the  empire  of  fact  to  the 
country  where  thought  is  emperor. 

*  A  strange  process  too,  this,  by  which  experience  is 
converted  into  thought,  as  a  mulberry  leaf  is  converted 
into  satin.  The  manufacture  goes  forward  at  all  hours. 
The  actions  and  events  of  our  childhood  and  youth  are 
now  matters  of  calmest  observation.  They  lie  like  fair 
pictures  in  the  air.  Not  so  with  our  recent  actions, — 
with  the  business  which  we  now  have  in  hand.  On 
this  we  are  quite  unable  to  speculate.  Our  affections 
as  yet  circulate  through  it.  We  no  more  feel  or  know 
it,  than  we  feel  the  feet,  or  the  hand,  or  the  brain  of 
our  body.  The  new  deed  is  yet  a  part  of  life, — remains 
for  a  time  immersed  in  our  unconscious  life.  In  some 
contemplative  hour,  it  detaches  itself  from  the  life  like  a 
ripe  fruit,  to  become  a  thought  of  the  mind.  Instantly, 
it  is  raised,  transfigured  ;  the  corruptible  has  put  on 
incorruption.  Henceforth  it  is  an  object  of  beauty, 
however  base  its  origin  and  neighbourhood.  Observe, 
too,  the  impossibility  of  ante-dating  this  act.  In  its 
grub  state,  it  cannot  fly,  it  cannot  shine,  it  is  a  dull 
grub.  But  suddenly,  without  observation,  the  self- 
same thing  unfurls  beautiful  wings,  and  is  an  angel  of 
wisdom.  So  is  there  no  fact,  no  event,  in  our  private 
history,  which  shall  not,  sooner  or  later,  lose  its 
adhesive,  inert  form,  and  astonish  us  by  soaring  from 
our  body  into  the  empyrean.  Cradle  and  infancy, 
school  and  playground,  the  fear  of  boys,  and  dogs,  and 
ferules,  the  love  of  little  maids  and  berries,  and  many 


1  '  The  Poet,'  Essays^  2nd  series. 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  259 

another  fact  that  once  filled  the  whole  sky,  are  gone 
already  ;  friend  and  relative,  profession  and  party, 
town  and  country,  nation  and  world,  must  also  soar 
and  sing.'  *  '  The  making  a  fact  the  subject  of  thought 
raises  it.'2 

All  poetry  therefore,  in  proportion  as  it  refreshes  us, 
is  the  play  of  the  soul  upon  and  behind  circumstance, 
the  recognition  by  the  soul,  in  thought,  of  its  own 
infinity.  And  this  is  really  why  no  great  poet  has  a 
system,  or,  if  he  has  a  system,  why  his  greatest  poetry 
lies  outside  it.  It  is  why  didactic  poetry  teaches  us 
nothing,  and  why  didacticism  of  any  kind  always 
tempts  us  to  contradict.  We  feel  outside  it.  *  It  is 
remarkable,'  says  Emerson,  '  that  involuntarily  we 
always  read  as  superior  beings,' 3  and,  though  this  is 
not  true  of  imaginative  literature,  it  is  very  evidently  so 
of  all  works  that  consist  of  statements.  In  literature 
that  is  truly  imaginative,  we  inhabit  an  atmosphere, 
and  can  no  more  feel  above  it  than  we  can  feel  above 
the  air.  But  no  statement  encloses  us,  and  we  feel  we 
are  larger  than  the  widest  pronouncement  of  wisdom. 
The  Song  of  Pippa  makes  us  conscious  of  what  lies 
outside  her  song,  and  when  a  poet  says  what  we  wish 
to  believe  we  immediately  become  dissatisfied. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  an  express  optimism 
tires  us,  but  the  ultimate  reason  is  that  we  will  not  be 
shut  up  to  it.  If  man  is  a  spirit  there  are  but  two 
entertainable  hypotheses  of  death.  To  express  them  in 
words,  meaningless  because  precise,  either  the  one  is 
merged  in  the  All  or  continues  distinct  in  apprehend- 


1  '  The  American  Scholar,3  Miscellanies. 

2  '  Intellect,'  Essays,  ist  series.          3  '  History,'  Essays,  ist  series. 


260  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

ing.  But  to  fix  upon  either  as  an  alternative,  or  to 
define  the  future,  to  satisfy  a  finite  curiosity,  is  to 
exchange  a  state  of  being  for  a  groove.  And  in  this 
groove  we  are  restless.  Doubts  perplex  us  ;  weary  of 
the  tedium  of  knowledge  we  desire  the  opposite  :— 

'  There  remaineth  a  rest  for  the  people  of  God  : 
And  I  have  had  troubles  enough,  for  one.' 

We  come  back  to  it  and  are  away  again.  We  handsel 
our  destiny  until  we  tire,  and  return  to  confidence  and 
a  quiet  mind  only  when  we  have  destroyed  our  defini- 
tions. Thus  even  Browning's  too  frequent  and  too 
confident  pronouncements,  and  certainly  Longfellow's 
habit  of  expressing  his  hopes  merely  as  statements  of 
fact,  are  not  soothing  but  irritating. 

'There  is  no  Death  !     What  seems  so  is  transition  ; 

This  life  of  mortal  breath 
Is  but  a  suburb  of  the  life  elysian, 
Whose  portal  we  call  death.' 

We  know  in  a  moment  that  that  statement  does  not 
contain  its  subject.  If  this  were  all  that  could  be  said, 
not  only  our  speculation  but  our  longing  could  never 
have  had  reality,  and  death  could  never  have  possessed 
a  sting.  When  a  man  tells  us  that  all  is  plain  sailing, 
we  have  no  use  for  him.  He  offers  to  sell  us  sovereigns 
for  a  penny,  and  we  won't  buy  them.  We  feel  that  the 
dignity  of  life,  and  the  nobility  of  its  aspirations 
demand  a  deeper  consciousness  of  its  meaning. 

But  the  charm  of  Longfellow's  poetry  is  to  be  found, 
not  in  these  pronouncements,  but  in  his  sentiment  I 
Undoubtedly. 

How  different  is  Emerson  !  '  We  grant  that  human 
life  is  mean  ;  but  how  did  we  find  out  that  it  was 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  261 

mean  ? ' x  Here  Emerson  replaces  an  affirmation  with 
a  question.  Instead  of  a  statement,  he  gives  us,  in 
which  to  disport  ourselves,  a  whole  region  of  thought. 
It  is  a  saying  the  width  of  which  justifies  his  own 
praise  of  the  delights  of  the  mind.  '  Some  thoughts 
always  find  us  young,  and  keep  us  so.  ...  In  sick- 
ness, in  languor,  give  us  a  strain  of  poetry,  or  a 
profound  sentence,  and  we  are  refreshed  ;  .  .  .  instantly 
we  come  into  a  feeling  of  longevity.* 2 

In  fact  every  attempt  to  enclose  the  infinite  awakens 
disquiet.  In  hymns,  for  the  purposes  of  definition, 
infinite  notions  are  shrunk  accordingly.  The  vivid 
imagery,  the  realisation,  convince  us  of  an  inner 
unreality  ;  the  atmosphere  and  the  attitude  are  too 
fixed,  and  Lucifer  is  not  the  only  spirit  who  has  good 
reasons  for  his  dislike  of  holy  water.  The  last  ecstasies 
of  the  true  believer,  and  the  sceptic's  holding  of  all 
thought  in  solution,  are  alike  in  contentedly  inhabiting 
a  vague  ;  are  similar  in  their  acceptance  of  an  ultimate 
mystery.  The  beauty  of  '  In  Memoriam '  is  dimmed 
by  Tennyson's  anxiety  to  find  an  answer.3  *  The  tone 
of  seeking  is  one,  and  the  tone  of  having  is  another.' 4 

Browning's  peculiar  service  to  his  generation,  as  a 
religious  teacher,  is  not  due  to  his  optimistic  dicta, 
though,  unlike  most  optimistic  dicta,  his  are  not  to  be 
dismissed  with  a  word.  Of  them  it  is  not  enough  to 


'The  Over-Soul,'  Essays,  ist  series.  2  Ibid. 

3  Is   it    fanciful    to    find   Tennyson's    deepest    personal    feeling 
expressed  more  singly  and  with  an  added  calm  in  the  later  poems, 
in  'The  Higher  Pantheism'  or  the  wonderful  'Vastness,'  or  even  in 
single  lines  of  a  superhuman  dignity  ? —    • 

'Spirit,  nearing  yon  dark  portal  at  the  limit  of  thy  human  state.' 

4  'The  Over-Soul,'  Essay  s,  ist  series. 


262  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

say  that  they  formed  his  moral  and  practical  contribu- 
tion to  the  social  energy  of  the  now  living  English,  and 
meant  the  tonic-bracing  of  many  lives.  To  say  this  of 
them  is  to  say  what  is  true,  but  it  is  not  enough  to  say, 
because  sometimes  they  sing.  Expressed  in  the  form 
of  too  confident  statements,  they  are  sometimes  the 
music  of  aspiration,  a  real  song  of  hope.1  But  his 
entirely  peculiar  religious  service  is  not  due  to  this 
song.  Nor  is  it  due  to  his  fondness  for  argumentation, 
nor  even  to  his  episodical  but  extremely  felicitous 
voicing  of  the  subjective  religion  of  his  day,  for  this 
was  done  more  fully  and  with  a  more  unfailing  sureness 
of  touch  by  Tennyson.  This  is  Tennyson's,  not 
Browning's,  religious  achievement.  What  is  wholly 
peculiar  to  Browning  is  his  way  of  adjusting  himself  to 
circumstance,  his  habit  of  content  in  dubiety.  It  is  a 
habit  of  mind,  not  a  doctrine  to  be  expressed  in  precise 
terms — where  Browning  is  precise,  it  is  generally  to 
express  himself  with  optimistic  certainty — but  it  is  the 
habit  which  finally  explains  his  unshakeable  confidence. 
This  poet,  though  in  many  ways  a  more  persistent 
speculator  than  Tennyson,  has  no  quarrel  with  spiritual 
laws.  Uncertainty  in  regard  to  the  Ultimate,  we  can 
hear  him  saying,  is  not  only  a  law  of  the  world  but  a 
desirable  law.  There  is  his  whole  series  of  poems 
dealing  with  moods  of  the  religious  mind — 'Cleon,' 
expressing  the  Greek  idea  of  the  worth  of  life  now,  but 
breaking  through  at  the  end  towards  Browning's  own 
conclusions:  *  The  Epistle  of  Karshish,'  a  poem  as 
distinctively  Jewish  in  attitude  as  '  A  Death  in  the 
Desert'  is  Christian,  yet  neither  wholly  dramatic,  and 


1  '  Abt  Vogler,' '  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,'  *  Pippa's  Song.' 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  263 

both  partaking  of  Browning's  sentiment  :  *  Bishop 
Blougram's  Apology,'  a  plea  for  the  worldly  value  of 
religion  if  religion  is  to  be  viewed  from  that  aspect 
alone,  a  plea  also  for  the  basic  religiousness  of  man  : 
and  the  strange,  vivid  'Caliban  upon  Setebos,' a  heaping 
together  of  the  thoughts  that  strike  the  mind  when, 
contemplating  a  world  of  oddities,  it  amuses  itself  with 
supposing  that  all  things  rest  on  a  basis  of  caprice — a 
series  of  poems  written  as  if  with  the  object  of  trying 
and  testing  the  Universe  from  different  points  of  view. 
There  is  also  his  doctrine,  developed  in  *  Christmas 
Eve  and  Easter  Day,'  of  the  need  for  the  continual 
reshaping  of  dogma,  the  doctrine,  we  might  say,  of  the 
tentative  dogma  : l  and  there  is  his  happy  pronounce- 
ment in  *  La  Saisiaz '  that  if  man  were  as  certain  of 
eternal  as  of  present  life  he  would,  putting  suicide 
altogether  aside,  go  through  his  present  life  slackly 
and  as  a  spectator.  A  belief  in  individual  duration  is 
Browning's  central  belief,  as  it  was  the  belief  about 
which  Tennyson  was  most  anxious,  but  accept  it  for  a 
fact  of  existence  and  all  the  sap  is  out  of  living.  We 
should  be  colonists,  not  home-dwellers  in  the  world, 
perpetually  dreaming  of  the  voyage  home.  It  is  well 
'that  a  veil  shuts  down  on  the  facts  of  to-morrow,'2 
just  as  it  is  well  that  in  life  perfect  happiness  cannot  be 
preserved.  If  it  could,  if  one  could  ride  with  one's 
loye  for  ever  along  the  Surrey  pastures  in  April,  or  on 
May-Day  by  the  Creetown  shore,  we  should  'burn 


1  Cp.  Emerson,  '  The  Poet,'  Essays,  2nd  series.     '  The  history  of 
hierarchies   seems  to   show,  that   all   religious   error  consisted    in 
making  the  symbol  too  stark  and  solid.' 

2  'The  Over-Soul,'  Essays,  ist  series. 


264  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

upward'  to  no  '  point  of  bliss.'  Again  there  is  his 
questioning  as  to  our  wishes  ;  in  '  Speculative,'  whether 
we  really  do  wish  a  new  life  or  just  '  Earth's  old  life ' 
restored,  and  in  *  Old  Pictures  in  Florence,'  whether 
our  actual  longing  is  for  Eternal  Progression  or  Eternal 
Rest.  The  answer  suggested  is  very  simple,  that  we 
desire  all,  and  that  there  is  no  limit  to  infinite  desire. 

Men  are  fond  of  table-rapping,  of  Longfellow's 
'Psalm  of  Life,'  and  of  developing  the  finite  side  of 
their  natures,  but  in  fact  there  is  an  atmosphere  that  is 
fresher  than  that  of  the  seance-chamber.  '  People  wish 
to  be  settled  ;  only  as  far  as  they  are  unsettled  is  there 
any  hope  for  them.'1  '  It  was  no  Oxonian,  but  Hafiz, 
who  said,  "  Let  us  be  crowned  with  roses,  let  us  drink 
wine,  and  break  up  the  tiresome  old  roof  of  heaven  into 
new  forms."  ' 2  Our  pleasure  in  these  poems  is  that  in 
them  the  soul  gets  '  soaring  room,' and  hovers  'with 
unconfined  wings.' 

Emerson's  doctrine  explains  equally  well,  in  regard 
to  the  moral  atmosphere  of  books,  the  less  obvious  of 
our  likings  and  dislikings.  An  imaginative  artist 
becomes  weak  when  he  takes  an  attitude  to  his  charac- 
ters, and  is  no  longer  content  to  let  them  play  outside 
him.  There  is  a  detraction  from  the  fluidity  of  life. 
In  Scott's  novels  you  are,  when  all  praise  is  exhausted, 
keeping  company  with  a  gentleman  ;  in  the  Norse 
sagas  with  humanity.  Especially  is  this  limitation 
apparent  when  there  is  a  moral  attitude.  An  express 
morality  is  the  negation  of  freedom,  and  '  Thou  shalt 
not '  is  a  discord  to  the  soul.  What  the  soul  loves  to 
contemplate  is  the  flowing  of  a  passion,  even  the 


Circles,'  Essays,  ist  series.         2  'Literature,'  English  Traits. 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  265 

passionate  austerity  of  the  saint,  for  all  realisation  is 
grand.  A  love  that  breaks  law  and  scorns  death, 
tramples  upon  fame  and  sets  kingdoms  at  variance,  is, 
as  an  anti-social  disturbance,  not  recognised  by  poetry, 
but  only  when  it  is  viewed  as  a  thing  explaining,  even 
justifying,  itself.  The  imagination  looks  on  the  posi- 
tive side  of  every  action,  for  on  the  negative  side  it  is 
limited.  The  same  story,  which,  left  alone,  is  the 
milk  of  moral  nature,  turns  sour  in  a  finite  churn. 
Morality  makes  immorality  of  so  much  of  the  morality 
of  art.  In  the  world  there  is  no  sweeter  legend  than 
that  of  the  affection  of  Tristan  and  Iseult  as  told  by 
Gottfried  von  Strassburg  in  Miss  Weston's  beautiful 
version  ;  an  affection  so  powerful  that  it  topples  over 
everything  the  world  holds  dear, — truth,  friendship, 
honour.  So  brutally  frank  is  the  dilemma  that  the 
legend  is  itself  afraid  of  it,  and  invents  the  philtre. 
The  noble  Sigurd  drank  of  a  potion  before  his 
mind  turned  from  Brynhild  to  thoughts  of  a  more 
earthly  maid.  It  was  magic,  says  the  trembling 
mortal,  just  as  to-day  we  say  he  must  have  been  mad. 
But  this  lunacy  happens  because  Love  reigns ; 
and  because  of  that,  Mortality  endures  and  each 
new  series  in  the  troubled  succession  discovers  life 
is  good.  In  our  hearts  we  know  the  poet  is  sing- 
ing not  of  broken  law,  but  of  law  fulfilled.  Yet 
Tennyson  did  not  know  this,  and  he  has  made  a  story 
which  the  world  knows  as  profitable,  a  tale  of  license  and 
marital  revenge.1  The  actual  subject  of  Tristan  and 


1  'The  Last  Tournament.'  Tennyson  in  his  sketch  has  altered 
the  tone  of  the  story  because,  while  accepting  the  incidents,  he  views 
them  differently.  It  is  perhaps  worth  saying  that  it  was  a  matter  of 
•  course  that  he  should  view  them  differently.  Tennyson  was  speak- 


266  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Iseult  was  as  much  above  Tennyson's  capacity  as  the 
actual  subject  of  Hiawatha  was  above  Longfellow's. 
Both  subjects,  in  their  different  ways,  were  grander 
than  the  two  very  different  poets:  'The  wise  Dan- 
damis,  on  hearing  the  lives  of  Socrates,  Pythagoras, 
and  Diogenes  read,  "judged  them  to  be  great  men 
every  way,  excepting  that  they  were  too  much  subjected 
to  the  reverence  of  the  laws,  which  to  second  and 
authorise,  true  virtue  must  abate  very  much  of  its 
original  vigour." ' * 

How  sweet  is  the  nut  in  Shakespeare's  shell !  In 
re-telling  the  tale  of  '  the  gentle  lady  married  to  the 
Moor,'  he  does  not,  like  Cinthio,  tell  us  that  she  ought 


ing  from   a   society  with  a  much  deeper  consciousness  than  the 
Middle  Ages  of  the  necessity  of  social  law.     To  re-tell  to-day  the 
whole  detailed  story  of  Tristram    in   the  way  of  the  Middle  Ages 
would  be  merely  to  trifle  with  one's  own  morality.     That  is  why 
Swinburne's  version    affects  us    as  essentially   trifling,  as  without 
moral  content.     But  the  real  problem  is  how  to  preserve  the  mean- 
ing of  a  legend.     Morris  in  his  '  Sigurd  the  Volsung'  has  evaded  the 
difficulty  by  confining  himself  to  translation.     Morris  does  not  really 
tell  Sigurd's  story  again.     What  he  has  left  us  is  the  translation,, 
nearest  of  all  English  translations  to  the  meaning  of  his  original.     It 
was  reserved  for  Arnold  to  meet  the  difficulty  full  face.     Arnold  in 
his  Tristram  does  not  exactly  omit  the  incidents,  but  he  views  them 
generally,  and  only  in  retrospect,  and  is  thus  able  to  preserve  the 
feeling  of  his  original  without  doing  violence  to  his  own  feeling. 
Arnold  quite  freely  and  whole-heartedly  celebrates  at  the  death-bed 
of   Tristram   what   Gottfried  von   Strassburg    had    celebrated   by 
Tristram's  life  ; — I  mean  the  persistence  or  undefeatability  of  affec- 
tion.    Arnold  does  really  re-tell  \hz  story  of  Tristram  (that  is  to  say, 
Arnold's  Tristram  is  full  throughout  not  of  a  translated  feeling  but  of 
Arnold's  own  feeling),  and  if  it  be  urged  that  his  beautiful  re-telling 
forms  an  inadequate  version  of  the  old  tale,  it  must  be  answered  that 
some  stories  in  their  entirety  cannot  be  told  again.     After  all,  there  re- 
mains the  old  story.    We  cannot  make  a  modern  story  out  of  the  Iliad,, 
but  that  should  not  prevent  us  from  seeing  what  the  Iliad  means. 
1  New  England  Reformers  :  A  Lecture,  1 844. 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  267 

not  to  have  done  so,  but  that  she  did,  and  no  one  read- 
ing *  Romeo  and  Juliet '  ever  dreamt  that  they  were  in 
the  wrong. 

King  Cophetua  and  the  Beggar  Maid  are  very 
pleasing  to  the  imagination  which  delights  in  seeing 
the  requirements  of  place  and  condition  violated,  and 
always  hopes  to  believe  that  there  are  no  obstacles  to 
the  power  of  love.  We  know  indeed  that  there  are 
none  and  that  love  can  triumph  over  everything.  We 
know  also,  of  course,  that  such  marriages  are  seldom 
successful,  and  the  result,  generally,  not  a  witness  to 
the  essential  equality  of  humanity,  but  two  broken 
lives.  Yet  when  Tennyson  tells  us  this  in  l  The  Lord 
of  Burleigh,'  we  do  not  thank  him.  These  troubles, 
which  'the  gallant  gay  domestics*  cannot  soften,  seem 
to  us  falsities.  It  is  idle  to  tell  us  that  the  story  is 
much  more  true  to  life  than  King  Cophetua,  and  that 
Tennyson  is  here  dealing  with  the  fact.  A  mere  social 
fact  which  illustrates  nothing,  which  tells  us  nothing 
but  that  we  are  creatures  of  circumstances,  is  no  fact 
for  the  imagination.  'The  child  asks,  "  Mamma,  why 
don't  I  like  the  story  as  well  as  when  you  told  it  me 
yesterday?"  Alas,  child,  it  is  even  so  with  the  oldest 
cherubim  of  knowledge.  But  will  it  answer  thy  ques- 
tion to  say,  Because  thou  wert  born  to  a  whole,  and  this 
story  is  a  particular?'1 

The  practical  nature  of  their  genius  is  what  gives  the 
English  this  fatal  blindness;  and  their  racial  incapacity 
to  see  the  infinite  in  the  life  before  them  explains  why 
to-day  we  have  so  much  competent  fiction  that  is  not 
of  literary  value.  In  speaking  of  'The  Sublime,'  Mr. 


'  Experience.'     Essays,  2nd  series. 


268  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

Bradley  turns,  for  an  instance  from  a  modern  writer, 
by  natural  instinct,  to  Turgenieff.  And  yet  as  much 
talent  goes  to  the  making  of  Thackeray's  novels  as  to 
his.  The  difference  is  surely  racial  ;  for  no  modern 
writer  has  a  deeper  sense  than  Thackeray  of  an  under- 
lying illusion,  a  better  feeling  for  Autumn  and  for 
Finis.  But  when  he  comes  to  describe,  it  is  gone. 
His  characters  do  not  move  in  an  infinite  world.  Often 
he  stops  speaking  of  them,  to  speak  to  us  of  the 
Infinite,  but  his  characters  he  does  not  read  infinitely. 
It  is  his  sentiment  that  is  his  imperishable  part.  What 
things  of  wood,  and  law,  and  class,  are  these  person- 
ages ;  how  much  bohemianism  and  gentlemanliness 
and  young-ladyhood  disguises  from  us  the  soul !  A 
silly  story  by  Anatole  France,  not  to  mention  his 
achievements,  brings  one  nearer  the  interior  of  a 
being. 

Of  the  grotesques  of  Dickens  it  is  necessary  to  speak 
more  carefully.  Clearly  there  are  no  characters,  so 
little  merely  copies  of  individuals,  which  are  so  lacking 
in  reference  to  the  infinite,  and  Dickens  when  he  is 
most  Dickens,  has  no  consciousness  of  a  vast.  Pick- 
wick and  Mantalini,  Pecksniff  and  Mrs.  Gamp,  live  in 
no  world  of  illusion,  but,  on  the  contrary,  eat  substan- 
tial food.  They  were  not  born  for  death,  as  Mr. 
Chesterton  says  truly.  They  possess  the  never-dying- 
ness  of  Falstaff,  that  absence  of  being  terminal  or  on 
a  visit  here,  which  attaches  to  all  true  children  of 
Comedy,  as  well  as  to  Comedy  herself.  For  all  this 
the  range  of  their  reference  is  wide.  They  are  not  part 
of  an  infinite  Universe,  but  they  throw  light  upon  an 
infinite  number  of  other  characters.  They  are  succu- 
lent, not  wooden,  and  illustrate  by  their  absurdities 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  269 

half  the  follies  of  mankind.  The  kindliness  of  Micaw- 
ber  is  shared  by  the  human  race,  and  you  learn  more 
about  men  from  these  people  who  never  lived  than  by 
much  painful  study  of  separate  lives.  Hence,  in 
speaking  of  Dickens  in  this  connection,  one  has  to  pick 
one's  words.  His  characters  are  not  finite,  in  the 
sense  in  which  that  term  is  used  of  Thackeray's.  Each 
speaks  for  many,  and  not  one  of  his  great  creations  is 
self-contained.  The  atmosphere  of  these  astonishing 
novels  is  very  wide.  In  the  main  you  are  dealing  with 
traits,  not  people,  and  thus  the  reference  to  character  is 
almost  infinite. 

And  yet  when  this  is  frankly  said,  and  one  has  real- 
ised the  cause  of  the  feeling  of  width  which  one  gets 
in  reading  Dickens,  it  is  obvious  that  no  more  than 
in  Thackeray  are  you  reading  of  the  soul.  The  world 
is  a  world  of  Victorian  grotesque ',  but  it  is  a  desperately 
Victorian  world,  and  staked  round  with  the  parapher- 
nalia of  common  things.  The  heart  shown  within  this 
palisade  is  very  soft  and  generous,  but  is  never  merely 
the  heart  of  man.  The  soul  is  conscious  neither  of  its 
immensity  nor  of  its  width,  and  never  beats  against  the 
limits  of  to-day. 

In  contemporary  non-English  Art  there  is  some- 
times 'a  subjugation  of  an  opposite  character.'  In 
Mr.  Synge's  '  Riders  to  the  Sea,'  a  little  poem  which 
makes  the  *  dead  march '  exquisite  and  lovely,  a  thing 
of  rainbow  and  pearl,  the  finite  is  almost  wholly  for- 
gotten. Maeterlinck  began  in  harbour,  it  is  true,  and 
in  'The  Princess  Maleine,'  it  is  at  life's  door  that  Death 
knocks  ;  but  in  his  later  and  greater  fantasies  there  is  too 
much  open  sea.  'The  Intruder '  no  longer  intrudes  upon 
what  is  his  own  domain,  and  existence  seems  a  protest 


270  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

increasingly  unavailing  against  a  surrounding  vague. 
To  look  fixedly  at  the  sun  is  not  the  best  way  to  see  it, 
and  one  cannot  live  for  ever  in  the  country  of  *  Les 
Aveugles.'  '  The  health  of  the  eye  seems  to  demand  a 
horizon.  We  are  never  tired  so  long  as  we  can  see 
far  enough/1  It  is  beautifully  said,  but  Emerson's 
sanity  always  implicitly  adds  that  the  health  of  the 
body  requires  some  place  on  which  to  put  one's  feet. 
The  ship  should  swing  at  its  moorings. 

Hawthorne,  by  being  an  American,  escapes  at  once 
this  tendency  to  dispense  with  a  basis,  and  the  amateur- 
ism of  English  mid-century  Art.  Life  exists,  but 
man's  adventures  form  the  stuff  out  of  which  the  soul 
is  made,  not  the  object  nor  the  true  interest  of  its 
being.  Hawthorne's  stories  therefore  begin  where 
those  of  Thackeray  and  Dickens  end.  The  whole 
business  of  Westervelt  and  Zenobia  lies  in  the  back- 
ground ;  the  interest  of  the  Marble  Faun  deepens  after 
the  murder  of  Vision  ;  The  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables  is  a  tale  of  twilight.  His  characters,  who  one 
and  all  suggest  no  social  place,  are  as  familiar  as  faces 
in  a  dream,  and,  in  a  smaller  theatre,  display  as  freely 
a  universal  heart  as  the  frantic  owner  of  the  horse 
Malek-Adel2  or  the  stumbling  Levin  with  the  priest.3 

When  morality  has  no  more  to  say,  the  moral 
instinct  is  awakened,  and  the  tender  Clifford,  whose 
vitality  has  been  whipped  to  tatters  by  the  iron  prison 
system,  speaks  to  deeps  in  the  ordinary  vital  man. 
Few  things  in  literature  are  more  sublime  than  the 


1  Treatise  on  Nature. 

2  Tourgenieff :  A  Sportsmaris  Sketches. 

3  Tolstoy  :  Anna  Karenina,  Part  V.  Chapter  I. 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  271 

introduction  of  the  child  Pearl  in  The  Scarlet  Letter. 
Hester  wears  the  seal  of  the  outlaw  uncomplainingly. 
Banished  from  the  life  of  her  community,  she  comes 
to  see  things  in  their  essence,  and  where  all  is  forgotten 
but  human  feeling,  there  only  is  at  home.  '  She  came, 
not  as  a  guest,  but  as  a  rightful  inmate,  into  the  house- 
hold that  was  darkened  by  trouble.  .  .  .  There 
glimmered  the  embroidered  letter,  with  comfort  in  its 
unearthly  ray.  Elsewhere  the  token  of  sin,  it  was 
the  taper  of  the  sick-chamber.  It  had  even  thrown 
its  gleam,  in  the  sufferer's  hard  extremity,  across  the 
verge  of  time.  ...  In  such  emergencies,  Hester's 
nature  showed  itself  warm  and  rich  ;  a  well-spring 
of  human  tenderness,  unfailing  to  every  real  demand, 
and  inexhaustible  by  the  largest.  Her  breast,  with 
its  badge  of  shame,  was  but  the  softer  pillow  for  the 
head  that  needed  one.* 

The  wound  burns  and  heals,  but  for  ever  it  burns. 
The  child  is  there,  by  an  inspiration,  at  once  as  the 
protest  of  lawlessness  and  as  the  lawful  protest  of 
Earth. 

'  In  the  afternoon  of  a  certain  summer's  day,  after 
Pearl  grew  big  enough  to  run  about,  she  amused 
herself  with  gathering  handfuls  of  wild  flowers,  and 
flinging  them,  one  by  one,  at  her  mother's  bosom  ; 
dancing  up  and  down,  like  a  little  elf,  whenever  she 
hit  the  scarlet  letter.  Hester's  first  motion  had  been 
to  cover  her  bosom  with  her  clasped  hands.  But, 
whether  from  pride  or  resignation,  or  a  feeling  that 
her  penance  might  best  be  wrought  out  by  this  unutter- 
able pain,  she  resisted  the  impulse,  and  sat  erect,  pale 
as  death,  looking  sadly  into  little  Pearl's  wild  eyes. 
Still  came  the  battery  of  flowers.' 


272  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

The  Puritans  are  here  on  the  side  of  a  virtue 
essential  to  society  ;  and  yet  we  feel  that  in  dealing 
with  a  breach  of  it,  as  the  Puritans  did  here,  with  a 
single  eye  to  reprobation,  we  have  come  upon  some- 
thing of  the  conventional,  and  that  in  their  purely 
moral  atmosphere  the  spirit  of  man  is  cramped.  We 
feel  as  if  a  disrespect  were  being  done  to  life, — or  to 
give  Emerson's  words — *  The  soul  requires  purity,  but 
purity  is  not  it.  ...  So  that  there  is  a  kind  of  descent 
and  accommodation  felt  when  we  leave  speaking  of 
moral  nature,  to  urge  a  virtue  which  it  enjoins.'1  The 
introduction  of  Pearl,  in  short,  entices  the  soul 
outside  the  life  of  man  and  links  it  with  the 
Universal  life.  Of  all  things  purity  is  the  most 
lovely,  and  yet  we  can  approach  too  singly  to  its 
celebration.  '  The  sea  is  lovely,  but  when  we  bathe  in 
it,  the  beauty  forsakes  all  the  near  water.'2  So  great 
and  moral  is  the  imagination  that  it  is  in  Art  man 
finds  his  freest  moment  and  ethical  delight. 

A  balancing  criticism  will,  however,  admit  that  while 
the  moral  atmosphere  of  Hawthorne  is  thus  profound, 
it  is  not  absolutely  healthy.  In  part  from  the  nature 
of  the  case.  As  his  interest  does  not  begin  till  the 
customary  moral  judgment  is  pronounced,  to  get  his 
circumstances  set  to  his  liking,  he  has  always  to  deal 
with  broken  law  ;  and  since  he  has  no  interest  in  moral 
problems  in  the  ordinary  sense,  he  is  always  tempted 
to  emphasise  this  breach.  The  questions  he  asks 
are  subsequent  questions,  and  he  is  careful,  instinc- 
tively, that  no  initial  question  of  the  right  or  wrong 


1  'The  Over-Soul,'  Essay s^  1st  series. 

2  'Beauty,'  Conduct  of  Life. 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  273 

of  the  actual  action  should  distract  the  attention. 
Besides,  he  inherits  from  his  forefathers  more  than 
something  of  the  Puritan  consciousness  of  sin.  The 
combined  result  is  that  he  so  constantly  tells  us  his 
characters  are  sinners,  and  dwells  so  much  on  the 
enormity  of  their  offences,  that  he  produces  an  atmo- 
sphere, a  little  hectic,  a  little  fevered.  It  is  not  exactly 
an  atmosphere  of  lost  souls,  but  it  is  an  atmosphere 
in  which  we  are  oppressed.  His  morality  here  may 
be  said,  the  morality  of  as  pure  and  gentle  a  moralist 
as  ever  lived,  to  be  a  little  defective.  We  miss 
Shakespeare's  large  confidence  in  his  readers,  his  trust 
in  our  moral  nature.  Why  should  we  be  anxious 
to  teach  the  human  conscience  what  it  knows  for 
itself  ?  Why  should  one  wish  to  be  more  moral  than 
the  world  ? 

It  is  sometimes  of  advantage  to  an  imaginative  artist 
to  be  less  so,  and  there  are  instances  of  literature  being 
saved  by  having  no  morality  at  all.  When  one  re- 
members the  more  horrible  tales  of  Poe,  '  Berenice/ 
for  instance,  '  The  Case  of  M.  Waldemar,'  even  the 
incomparably  skilful  'Lygeia,'  one  asks  oneself  by 
what  legerdemain  are  we  made  to  tolerate  such  stories, 
how  is  it  they  do  not  totally  disgust. 

For  this  reason — their  whole  appeal  is  to  the  curious 
intellect. 

Indeed,  when  one  comes  to  think  of  it,  nothing  is 
more  surprising  in  Poe's  tales  than  the  rarity  of  the 
occasions  on  which  the  moral  judgment  is  appealed  to  ; 
the  rarity  of  the  occasions  on  which  the  moral  judg- 
ment is  even  aroused.  To  adopt  a  phrase  of  his  own, 
'  the  nervous  intensity  of  interest  with  which  in  his  case 
the  powers  of  observation  and  meditation,'  and  these 

s 


274  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

powers  alone,  '  busy  and  bury  themselves  in  the  con- 
templation '  of  the  most  extraordinary  occurrences,  is 
perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  his  miraculous  qualities. 

When  Poe  deals  ostensibly  with  moral  effects  he  is 
weak.  The  story  of  William  Wilson  is  meant  to  be 
a  story  of  conscience.  In  so  far  as  it  is  so,  it  is  a 
manufactured  thing.  The  great  success  it  achieves  is 
due  to  the  intellectual  pleasure  derived  from  surprise. 
'  The  Man  of  the  Crowd '  has  a  tremendous  effect,  but 
the  effect  is  not  the  effect  of  morality  but  of  mystery. 
This  is  why  Poe's  poems  are  no  better  than  they  are. 
It  is  impossible  to  write  considerable  poetry  unless 
there  is  a  basis  of  moral  idea.  But  this  absence  of 
moral  idea,  which  is  a  basic  defect  in  a  poet,  is  the 
crowning  merit  of  an  artist  in  the  horrible.  We  can 
tolerate  from  Poe  what  we  can  tolerate  from  no  one 
•else.  He  presents  us  with  a  detailed  account  of  can- 
nibalism at  sea,  and  it  does  not  totally  sicken :  a 
hideous  murder  is  with  him  an  event,  and  when  a 
husband  plunges  with  his  wife's  corpse  overboard,  we 
are  excited — nothing  more.  This  is  what  would  be 
thought  unfeeling  by  the  Tribunal  of  the  Terror, 
yet  our  pleasure  in  these  stories  is  that  in  them 
the  prying  intellect  can  satisfy  itself  undisturbed. 

More  often,  no  doubt,  we  are  not  content  merely  to 
say  goodbye  to  limitations  ;  we  override  them.  We 
side  with  Ajax  against  the  lightning,  and  there  is  no  rule 
made  by  man  or  essential  to  our  condition  the  yoke  of 
which  sometimes  we  do  not  feel  to  gall.  Nietzsche's 
violence  lets  us  see  the  doctrine  of  sympathy,  for  once, 
wholly  from  outside,  and  relieves  the  spirit  from  a 
creeping  bondage  to  the  best.  '  Honour  him,'  says 
Emerson  in  his  highest  strain,  *  whose  life  is  perpetual 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  275 

victory.  .  .  .  With  eyes  open,  he  makes  the  choice  of 
virtue,  which  outrages  the  virtuous  ;  of  religion,  which 
churches  stop  their  discords  to  burn  and  exterminate  ; 
for  the  highest  virtue  is  always  against  the  law.'1  And 
so  apparent  is  the  fact  at  the  base  of  this  that  sometimes 
we  even  sport  with  it,  and  imagine  a  tun-bellied  sot 
and  sensualist  as  the  type  of  the  liberated  soul.  <  The 
bliss  of  freedom  gained  in  humour,'2  says  Mr.  Bradley, 
'  is  the  essence  of  Falstaff,'  and,  once  he  has  demon- 
strated the  cause  of  our  pleasure  in  this  character, 
the  cause  is  obvious.  In  great  literature  we  discover 
that  the  mind  has  sides  to  it,  and  loves  neither  straight 
lines  nor  closed  doors. 

What  is  the  method  of  the  grand  illustrator  of  the 
genus  Man  ?  By  what  means  does  Shakespeare  bring 
home  to  us,  in  a  surprisingly  new  way,  old  truths 
about  ourselves  ?  Are  those  large  results  achieved  by 
the  use  of  good  sense,  by  telling  us  probable  fictions, 
or  by  making  his  imaginary  characters  act  as  they 
would  act  in  life?  It  would  be  more  true  to  say  that  he 
manages  it  by  contradictions,  impossibilities,  surprises, 
by  the  negation  of  the  probable.  The  fine  harmonies 
of  The  Winter's  Tale  are  directly  due  to  his  making 
men  jealous  for  no  reason,  affectionate  wives  punish 
repentant  husbands  for  sixteen  years,  and  princesses 
brought  up  in  a  cottage  betray  no  traces  of  their  up- 
bringing. In  Hamlet  he  tells  us  the  story  of  a  middle- 
aged  and  accomplished  prince,  still  at  school,  acting 
and  treated  like  a  boy,  to  distinguish  further  the  com- 
plexity  of  the  mind  :  in  Macbeth  a  hobgoblin  tale  about 


1  '  Worship,'  Conduct  of  Life. 

2  Oxford  Lectures  on  Poetry,  '  The  Rejection  of  Falstaff.3 


276  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

a  bloody  tyrant,  to  make  clear  to  us  the  humanity  of  man. 
Shakespeare's  Othello  is  of  a  free  and  open  nature,  and 
for  his  revenge  he  can  think  of  nothing  better  than  to 
employ  his  servant  in  a  mean  assassination.  Every- 
thing Tolstoy  has  said  about  Lear  is  true.  It  is  a  con- 
glomeration of  melodramatic  absurdities,  and  yet  there 
is  no  religion  that  speaks  more  eloquently  to  the 
suffering  of  the  world. 

But  is  this  peculiar  to  Shakespeare  ?  Is  it  not  true 
of  all  the  literature  we  most  value  that  it  goes  a  step 
beyond  extravagance  and  mixes,  in  great  plenty, 
smoke  with  flame?  By  indirections  we  find  directions 
out  and  read  folly  to  be  wise.  In  the  Iliad,  gods  and 
heroes  are  always  achieving  the  impossible.  We  love 
Hector  because  he  was  dragged  in  the  dust,  and 
Achilles  for  sulking  in  his  tent.  The  Odyssey  is  a 
fairy  tale,  and  often  a  most  foolish  one.  Don  Quixote 
and  Gulliver's  Travels  are  well  fitted  to  be  favourites 
in  the  nursery.  Ariosto's  fable  is  more  childish  than 
Tasso's,  and  therefore  can  bear  to  be  longer.  What 
nonsense  amused  the  German  mind  in  the  Middle 
Ages — Siegfried  with  his  cap  of  darkness — the  ring  of 
fire — the  maidens  singing  under  water  about  a  bag 
of  sovereigns — a  man  wooing  his  bride  for  another, 
and  in  the  form  of  that  other.  It  is  of  a  piece  with 
Goethe's  rigmarole  about  the  Prince  of  Darkness 
neglecting  his  business  to  go  sky  -  larking  on  the 
Brocken,  Milton's  folly  about  the  celestial  war,  and 
apple,  and  Dante's  subterranean  fears. 

Who  reads  these  tales,  if  not  every  one?  The 
stockbroker  in  the  evening  is  found  grinning  over  the 
wild  adventures  of  Pantagruel.  The  lawyer,  on  a 
Sunday  is  sealed  with  Merlin  in  the  hollow  oak.  The 


EMERSON'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INFINITE  277 

good  clergyman,  in  the  week,  knows  the  roll  of  the 
prophets  no  better  than  the  love  affairs  of  Jupiter. 

'  Innocently  to  amuse  the  imagination,'  said  Gold- 
smith, '  in  this  dream  of  life  is  wisdom  '  ;  for  indeed, 
it  is  the  patent  or  visible  that  is  the  absolute  fiction, 
and  in  dreams  alone  we  behold  the  true.  Towns, 
Cathedrals,  the  Bank  of  England,  and  the  Pyramids, 
nay  the  very  senses  which  return  us  our  report  of  these, 
do  we  not  know  they  are  ephemera — the  finite  on  their 
way  to  pass  ;  and  that  there  is  nothing  real  at  all  but 
the  spirit,  which  is  infinite,  and  the  cloudland  of 
fancy  in  which  it  dwells.  There  we  see  ourselves 
as  in  a  glass  and  not  darkly,  our  real  selves  that, 
in  life,  perhaps,  never  got  a  word  spoken.  The  old 
bachelor  climbs  rope-ladders  with  Romeo,  the  school- 
mistress is  enthusiastic  over  Desdemona's  marriage, 
and  we  are  all  at  last  happy  when  the  ruffian  Posthumus, 
who  laid  a  bet  about  his  wife's  honour,  is  dismissed 
to  happiness  and  Imogen.  In  Shakespeare's  world  we 
find  jealousy  impressive  and  a  murderer  a  moralist.  It 
is  an  unfixed  world  in  which  we  find  ourselves  at  home. 
But  no  great  literature  differs  in  kind  from  his.  There 
is  '  the  Zoroastrian  definition  of  poetry,  mystical,  yet 
exact,  " apparent  pictures  of  unapparent  natures."'1 
In  all  poetry  we  recognise  as  great,  we  can  hear  this 
veiled  reality  whispering  to  our  hidden  self,  and  can 
.set  out  to  test  those  contradictions  which  life  supplies 
but  leaves  unresolved  ;  for  is  not  man  himself  a  con- 
tradiction— a  spirit  bound  to  make  matter  serve  his 
turn  ? 

He  kills  animals   by  his   cunning  and   stores  with 


1  English  Traits,  '  Literature.5 


278  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

careful  providence  his  annual  corn,  he  builds  houses 
brick  by  brick  ;  but  he  lives  in  his  imagination,  he 
flies  only  when  he  essays  a  daring  flight,  and  feels 
human  when  he  rests  upon  his  wings.  Man  himself  is 
the  enigma.  Hovering  in  an  Eternity,  on  his  voyage 
from  the  unknown  to  the  unknown,  he  is  himself,  in 
Carlyle's  language,  'the  mystery  of  mysteries,'  to  be 
interpreted  but  by  stray  glints  and  gleams,  interpret- 
able,  if  at  all,  not  by  prose  and  reason  but  by  poetry. 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  CONSTABLE,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 
at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press 


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